The story is about 43 year old Jennifer who has just been given three months to live. Instead of going on a trip of a lifetime, she decides her biggest regret is not the places she hasn’t seen but the words she has left unsaid. So she sits down and writes letters to the three most important people in her life, telling them the things she’s always wanted to say but never dared. The truth. But as Jennifer learns, once the truth is out there, it’s very hard to put back. “I think the themes in the book – death, lost love, regret – are universal which is why it has appealed across so many territories. And it’s not all doom and gloom, it’s very witty too.
Funnily enough, the first foreign language in which the book will be published is Swedish. “I was posted all over the Stockholm Red Line (tube) last year in the Dove campaign. It feels serendipitous that the book should follow.”
Death and Other Happy Endings amazon.co.uk and all good bookstores from 13 June.
For thirty years, Melanie was an agent and publicist for some of the biggest stars in British TV including Ulrika Jonsson, Melanie Sykes and Melinda Messenger. Eventually she decided it was time to focus on achieving a personal dream so she gave up her agency, hung up her agent’s hat and turned to writing novels. Ten years later, she was still writing novels but remained unpublished. “After the first and most painful rejection, I became so used to receiving thank you but no thank yous from agents, I thought I would never see my name on a book spine. But I never gave up. I couldn’t. I knew the only thing I wanted to do at this stage in my life was write, whether or not I got published, so I carried on.”
Finally, in February last year she received a reply to her submission from Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown. “I was reading the email, scanning it really quickly, getting past all the niceties and waiting to read the but. There was always a but. But this time there wasn’t. I burst into tears. I had done it.”
A few tweaks later, the manuscript was sent out to publishers and after a three way auction “Death And Other Happy Endings” found its home at Transworld Publishers. Much to Melanie’s surprise, at the same time, a deal was agreed with Pamela Dorman/Viking Books in the States. The book will also be translated into nine other languages including Russian, Chinese, Hebrew, Italian and Portuguese.