Hi Jo,
I wanted to pitch you an author for Books to Turn To. I think the slot would suit him and he’d write a strong, personal piece for it.
Mo Fanning is a comic novelist (seven novels, bylines in The Bookseller, BookBrunch, QX Magazine, She Reads and Female First) whose new book Lisa Doyle Is Absolutely Fine publishes 18 June with Spring Street Books. It’s a comedy about a woman who, four glasses into a bottle of wine, invents a fiancé called Brian to keep up with her best friend’s engagement – and then has to talk an actual Brian into standing by her side through the hen weekend, parents’ dinner and finally the wedding itself. Warm, comic, character-led, very much in the territory GH readers love – think Marian Keyes meets Mhairi McFarlane and happen to run into Graham Norton at cocktail hour.
For Books to Turn To, Mo’s proposed theme would be “Five books to read when everyone else seems to have it figured out” – a personal piece on the novels that have helped him through the comparison economy of midlife: the work-friend-shaped lifelines, the quiet panic of feeling left behind, the small lies we tell to keep up. He’d pull together five novels that handle this honestly and warmly (a mix of female-authored contemporary fiction and one or two older titles), with a short personal lead-in on why the subject is on his desk.
If that theme isn’t quite right, a couple of alternatives that would also play to his voice:
• “Five novels that get female friendship right” – from a male novelist who writes almost exclusively female ensembles, on the books that taught him how to do it
• “Five books to read after a wedding (from Hell or otherwise)” – a comic, slightly recovery-tinged list for the post-confetti comedown
On timing – I know we’re past the lead time for a June–July placement to coincide with pub date, so I’m flagging this for the September issue or later. The book has a long paperback life ahead of it and the piece would stand on its own merits regardless. Mo is booked for lit-fests through late summer and into autumn.
For comparison hooks: think Mhairi McFarlane, Beth O’Leary, Marian Keyes – warm, funny, female-driven, with real emotional heft underneath the comedy.
Mo is Birmingham-based, very quotable, and writes well to brief. Press release, review copy (paperback, ebook or audio), author photo and cover artwork all available on request – just say the word.
With thanks,
Adrian Bedford
for Mo Fanning
mofanning.co.uk
Lisa Doyle Is Absolutely Fine – Spring Street Books – 18 June 2026 — ISBN 978-1-068394-71-3