Then two became four, a flat became a house. Romantic nights out became sleepless nights in. And they soon found that life wasn’t quite so simple any more. But through it all Jem and Ralph still loved each other, of course they did.

Now the unimaginable has happened. Two people who were so right together are starting to drift apart. And in the chaos of family life, Ralph feels more and more as if he’s standing on the sidelines, and Jem that she’s losing herself.

Something has to change. Maybe it’s not too late to recapture happily ever after …

A warm and involving novel that will restore your faith in life, love and the power of starting over. After the Party is Lisa Jewell at her unforgettable best.

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Read an extract

A vote of thanks – Lisa talks about her fans and what your support and feedback means to her, whether via email, facebook or a hand written letter. Thank you all! Please keep it coming!

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Here Lisa shares her advice for budding writers on how to get published and her five top tips for becoming a author.  Lisa was working as a PA when she wrote Ralph’s Party and a friend’s advice and encouragement changed her life forever. Could Lisa’s advice change yours?

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How Lisa got a book deal… and other stories

I didn’t set out on a grand path to be a writer. I was working as a PA for a shirt maker in Jermyn Street and then I lost my job.

I read High Fidelity and it was the first time that I’d read a book where I felt that someone was talking about my life and talking my language. I had also just watched This Life on TV. And there was Friends on TV too. I had just done a creative writing course in the evenings at a college. It gave me a lot of confidence – people kept saying that I should write something.

One night I was on holiday with a friend and she was a journalist and she asked “what’s next for you?” I said I would like to write a book. She said “just do it.” She said if I wrote 3 chapters she’d take me for dinner.

So I did it and wrote 3 chapters of Ralph’s Party. All the time I was just thinking that I was fulfilling my ‘dinner’ bet with friend. I didn’t really think that I was Writing A Book. When she read the chapters she really liked them. She made me send them to agents. So I sent it to 10 and got 9 rejections which was completely what I’d expected. But the 10^th letter was from someone who said they would like to see the whole thing and that I should write the book.

So I moved in with my boyfriend, got a part-time job, wrote for a year and took the book back to the agent. A week later she phoned me and said “It’s really rather good! But it’s going to need a lot of work.”

I went in to see her – she lives in a slightly quirky flat in Primrose Hill and there was nothing there to reassure me that she was genuine. It did actually occur to me that maybe was some crazy renegade agent!

She said: “I’m going to set up a bidding war. By the time you get back from holiday I shall have you a book deal.”

I went on holiday and when I got home she told me that Penguin had picked it up. None of the other publishers wanted it, so there had been no bidding war.

So getting published and becoming a writer – it was all about conversations at the right time. And then a hell of a lot of people believing in me. No one thought that I was mad, or that I was wasting my boyfriend’s money or having a crazy year. They all kept asking me “how’s the book?” and I realised that they really believed that I could do it. And that made me believe that I could do it.

How Ralph’s Party was born

The idea for the book came to me because I liked the idea of an ensemble piece. I liked the idea of seeing a story from lots of different perspectives. I wanted to talk about falling in love and shitty jobs and flatshares – that was all fresh stuff to me at that stage of my life.

But funnily enough, when I started writing it I thought it was going to be really dark. Ralph was going to go psycho and keep Jem in a dark room somewhere! But the fact that my friend was reading it and loving the lighter love story – that made me keep it lighter. One of my favourite quotes is from Zadie Smith who says “you can only write the book that you can write.”

The Sequel: After the Party

Fast forward ten years and I was coming up to my contract for my 7^th and 8^th books. I’d given them some quite quirky things to publish which were a bit difficult to pigeon-hole, so I thought maybe it was time to do something for my publishers. It was 10 years since Ralph’s Party, so the idea of a sequel came to me.

The reaction I had to the idea was great but I was worried it might be a bit like the rather disappointing sequel to This Life. I didn’t want my sequel to be contrived like that. I tried to think of a way of incorporating all the old characters but knew that it wouldn’t be natural, so I decided to focus on Ralph and Jem. And then I realised that it was the perfect opportunity for me to write about a modern long term relationship, something I’d been wanting to write for a while. So it all came together really well – what I wanted to write about and the place that Ralph and Jem would be now.

Last time we’d seen them Ralph & Jem were 27, perfect people, they’d just had their first kiss and it was all ahead of them. I dragged them off their blue sofa and brought them crashing into the new millennium. It was the toughest book I’ve ever written. It was really personal – and not in a good way.

Lisa Jewell discusses the genre of ‘chick lit’. What does it mean to her? What does ‘chick-lit’ add to culture and our very own reading pleasure? Do we need a new name entirely? If you have any thoughts you’d like to share, why not join the debate at Lisa’s facebook fan page

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Watch Lisa discuss being a writer and what this means for her as a mother. How does she juggle the two? Discover the truth: what is the worst thing about being a writer? And of course, what is the best?!

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But, as a child, what did she want to be when she grew up? How did a chance conversation with a friend lead to a life changing decision? How did Lisa become a writer?

Lisa discusses candidly how she wrote her bestselling debut novel Ralph’s Party, how she got a publishing deal and who it is that she writes for.

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