Chemistry for Beginners

A couple of years ago, more for fun than anything else, I started to write a story called ‘Chemistry For Beginners’. It’s a bit different from my ‘regular’ novels, in that it’s an out-and-out romantic comedy, and it doesn’t really contain much food writing. Above all, it’s deliberately quirky in both tone and structure: the story takes the form of a scientific paper written by the lead character, a brilliant – but somewhat repressed – Oxford biochemist called Steven Fisher. When a postgraduate called Annie Gluck joins his research study, everything starts to go wrong for him… mainly because he just can’t see what is obvious to everyone else: that he’s romantically attracted to her.

‘Chemistry for Beginners’ started off as a short story, then became a novella, incorporating not only Steven’s scientific paper but also extracts from Annie’s daily blog. Another rewrite, and it started to become a novel – the characters literally taking on a life of their own and demanding that I allow them to behave a certain way.

Which, strange as it may seem, was a big headache for me. As a professional novelist, I’m under contract with publishers in several different countries. Often, I’ll write a synopsis, the publisher will OK it, and then under the terms of my contract I have to deliver the book a year later. In some cases I have a two- or even a three-book deal.

And ‘Chemistry for Beginners’ was not part of that. As far as my contracts with publishers go, it’s a distraction from my food-based series. So, rather than wait, I published it under a pseudonym. At the moment it’s only available in the US, but Amazon in your local market should be able to get it for you, and of course you can always buy a digital edition. In the UK, Corvus Books will publish it in hardback, probably in April 2011, with a paperback edition to follow. There’s also been an approach from a German publisher. So I hope that it will be available in most markets by the end of 2011.

The US Library Journal recently shortlisted it for best Genre Fiction Novel of the year, saying “Chemistry for Beginners is at once a witty send-up of academia and a sweet exploration of the mysteries of the human heart,” while an earlier review said  ‘This sparkling romantic comedy… contains some of the most original courting scenes since Leander swam the Hellespont for Hero and the funniest description of an orgasm since the classic Meg Ryan scene in When Harry Met Sally. Very funny and highly recommended, even for science-averse romantics’ – but really, the simplest way to find out if it’s your kind of thing is to read an extract, and see what you think. 

Download extract in PDF format