Publication: 22nd August 2019 – HQ
‘I was pregnant with the baby of a man I had met once.
What was one normally left with after a first date? A bad case of thrush?’
After eight years together, Lil Bailey thought she’d already found ‘the one’ – that is, until he dumped her for a blonde twenty-something colleague. So she does what any self-respecting singleton would do: swipes right, puts on her best bra and finds herself on a first date with a handsome mountaineer called Max. What’s the worst that can happen?
Well it’s pretty bad actually. First Max ghosts her and then, after weeing on a stick (but mostly her hands), a few weeks later Lil discovers she’s pregnant. She’s single, thirty-one and living in a thimble-sized flat in London, it’s hardly the happily-ever-after she was looking for.
Lil’s ready to do the baby-thing on her own – it can’t be that hard, right? But she should probably tell Max, if she can track him down. Surely he’s not that Max, the highly eligible, headline-grabbing son of Lord and Lady Rushbrooke, currently trekking up a mountain in South Asia? Oh, maybe he wasn’t ignoring Lil after all…
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When I heard that Sophia Money-Coutts had a new book coming out I knew I had to read it. I really enjoyed her debut novel, The Plus One. I found it hilarious and completely captivating. I expected the same from her second book and I wasn’t disappointed.
What I loved most about WHAT HAPPENS NOW? is the protagonist. Lil Bailey is realistic, engaging, and funny. She is honest, loyal, and kind, the type of character that I wish was by best friend. She is a teacher in a prestigious boys school in Chelsea, she has a few good friends, and she has a fantastic relationship with her parents. All in all, she is a normal girl, but her life becomes a bit complicated when, after a one-night stand (with a few sex scenes that made me cry from laughing), she finds out she is pregnant. Handsome and charming Max, the father of her baby, is a famous mountain climber and he comes from a noble family and they don’t have much in common. Lil has nine months to figure out her relationship with Max (does she have feelings for him?), her living situation (she is flat sharing with a couple who does yoga and has loud sex), and how she is going to raise her child (can she really be a single mother?).
As I already mentioned, I loved the protagonist Lil, she is my kind of gal. I liked her at the beginning of the story, but I also liked how she grows and develops, the person she becomes at the end. I also liked her friends, the twins Jess and Clem. This duo created some of the funniest scenes in the book with their witty dialogues and their easy relationship with Lil. Although sometimes I found him a bit snob, Max is a likable character, even if a bit mysterious. Other characters worth of mention are the children in Lil’s class who with their honesty and with their innocent yet embarrassing questions made me laugh quite a lot, and the feared and stern mistress of the school which I found a very interesting character.
Friendship, love, motherhood, and loss are all themes the author addresses with her clear and flowing writing style using humour, but also a few emotional moments that gave the story a more serious tone. I laughed, I fell in love with the characters, I was completely engrossed in the story, and I am hoping that we will get to read more about Lil and Max and what happens next.
A huge thank you to Joe Thomas and HQ for inviting me to join the blog tour and providing me with a copy of this brilliant novel.
Book After Book 
Fab review sounds like a fun read!
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