My dearest book backers,

I have a very exciting update for you today... the cover art for Out of Love!

I’m so thrilled to be able to share this with you before anyone else sees it because your support has made this whole thing possible. Since my last update we hit 150% of the crowdfunding target and Out of Love now has over 1,000 preorders, which is just incredible and all thanks to you.

I’ll be uploading a video to my YouTube channel about the cover art and other updates shortly so keep an eye out for that if you want to know more and in the meantime I’d really appreciate if you could please not share it on social media. This is an exclusive first look just for you.

Now here it is, my beautiful book cover, designed by Anna Morrison. I hope you love it as much as I do.

 


 <img alt class="doksoft_image_img" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0728/3615/3620/files/940291A1-32BC-411A-87E8-EE090C5CC9FE.jpg?v=1690912715" width="326" height="500">

Out of Love Cover Art

Sorry for the all caps. I promise not to do that again. Unless I’m really, very excited about something. And I am really, very excited about this, to be fair.

 

I wrote a bloody book! I actually did it. I held a physical copy of the first draft in my hands. I let out a massive sigh of relief at the prospect of finally being finished. And then I remembered I still need to edit the damned thing.

 

The toughest part of the process is done, there’s no doubt about that, but I still have a lot of work to do to make this the very best book it can be. I stepped away from it to focus on other projects for a little while, and I now find myself waking up in the middle of the night, suddenly realising things I want to change, and thankful that I have the opportunity to do so. This is what an edit is for, I suppose.

 

I've already received the first round of notes from my editor. We’re meeting tomorrow to discuss her feedback in more detail, and then I will begin the impossible task of looking at my own work objectively. I’ll have to pull it apart, and put it back together, and probably kill a few of my darlings, but perhaps I’ll make some new, better darlings along the way.

 

I’ll keep you posted about this next part of the process, which I am quite nervous about. I’ve never edited a book before. But then, I’d never written a book before either and somehow I managed to make it through that in one piece.

 

Thank you as always for your support and for continuing to listen to my ramblings.

 

All the best,

Hazel

I WROTE A BLOODY BOOK!

Dearest Bookbackers,

It has been six months since I launched this crowdfunding campaign, we've just hit 130% funded, and I am only two chapters away from finishing the book!

To celebrate all this, there'll be 15% off all orders up to £100 until Monday with promo code OUTOFLOVE. That goes for new pledges and upgrades to existing pledges so if you were thinking of upgrading, now's the time to do it.

I can't quite believe I almost have a completed first draft and I am very, very excited to hold the physical manuscript in my hands. I'm also excited to start working more with the team at Unbound on the edit, artwork and plans for the coming year, as well as having more time to share the process with you.

In the meantime, here's a little extract from the third chapter, Bodies, to tide you over...

 

I’m lying awake in bed when the phone rings. It’s Theo. I don’t pick up. Two minutes later I call him back.

    “Are you drunk?” I ask when he answers.

    “No.”

    “Are you done ignoring me then?”

    “I wasn’t ignoring you,” he says.

    “Well it sure fucking felt like it,” I snap.

    There’s a pause.

    “My gran died,” says Theo. His voice cracks slightly. He sniffs.

    I sit up in bed and switch the light on.

“My mum says she died peacefully, in her sleep,” he says, then sniffs again.

I couldn’t care less how she died. Theo’s grandmother, Augusta, was a cruel, carping, racist old bitch who spoke with great fondness of a post-war Britain, when “people knew their place”. From what I could glean, Augusta had never been particularly kind to Theo—and she grew even meaner when he brought home an Irish girl—but he loved her in the same way he loves his mother, with naivety and a selective blindness.

   “Oh, honey," I say, "I’m so sorry.”

15% OFF & A NEW EXTRACT

Merry Christmas book backers!

You have given me the greatest gift of all this year and it came in the form of ABSOLUTELY SMASHING OUR TARGET!!

The campaign will continue to run, and you can continue to pledge or even upgrade existing pledges, but I can now sleep soundly in the knowledge that my book is officially printable and publishable and sendable to you lovely lot. So thank you very much for that piece of mind.

I’ve been writing away and I finished another chapter just before Christmas. It was quite a heavy one so I’m resting my brain a bit now. But I’m excited to get back to it soon!

Between Christmas and New Year’s Day there’ll be 10% OFF ALL PLEDGES with promo code LOVE. So please feel free to make use of that or spread the word about it.

In the meantime, I hope you’re all keeping well and enjoying the holidays in whatever way you choose to celebrate. At the very least I hope you have a restful break and that you get to do some nice things that make you happy, like watching old movies in your pants, taking your cat for a walk, going without milk for several days because you forgot to stock up, or avoiding other humans entirely.

Wherever you are, stay cosy and enjoy the good bits!

Much love,

Hazel

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (& 10% OFF)

'I fell in love with this book. The writing was good enough to make me forget I had a phone, put it that way' Aisling Bea
A novel for anyone who has loved and lost, and lived to tell the tale.
As a young woman packs up her ex-boyfriend’s belongings and prepares to see him one last time, she wonders where it all went wrong, and whether it was ever right to begin with. Burdened with a broken heart, she asks herself the age-old question . . . is love really worth it?
Out of Love is a bittersweet romance told in reverse. Beginning at the end of a relationship, each chapter takes us further back in time, weaving together an already unravelled tapestry, from tragic break-up to magical first kiss. In this dazzling debut Hazel Hayes performs a post-mortem on love, tenderly but unapologetically exploring every angle, from the heights of joy to the depths of grief, and all the madness and mundanity in between. This is a modern story with the heart of a classic: truthful, tragic and ultimately full of hope.
'Out of Love will fill the gap that Normal People left in our heart . . . Trust us, this is the book of the summer' Evoke
'Wise, compelling and beautifully written' Daily Mail
'What a book . . . Hayes references Nora Ephron throughout and she's a pretty good successor judging from this debut' Stylist

He’s standing in the hallway now, looking into the bedroom we once shared, processing the new decor and the number of boxes I’ve stacked against one wall.
“There’s so many.”
“I did say,” I call back from the kitchen. As I reach into the cupboard for some mugs, he speaks again, quieter this time.
“Thanks, for packing it all for me.”
He glances towards me, all doe eyes and guilt.
"You’re welcome,” I say.
He goes into the bedroom and as I pour water over a tea bag, I’m distracted. I look back at the spot where he stood and remember the night he left, just over a month ago. I stopped him, grabbed him, and we stood holding one another for what felt like far too long and not nearly long enough. I tried, right there on that very spot, to commit the feel of him to my memory; the weight of his arms, the exact pressure they exerted on my body, the concave dip of his chest where my head rested neatly, how my right hip bone pressed against his left, and how my shoulders folded, birdlike, as he pulled me into him. When he took a step back I remained, motionless. He kissed me. Said he loved me. And with that he was gone.

There was a silence then. More than a silence, a vacuum. It felt as though the air around me had been sucked out the door with him and I now stood inside a void so dense that my skull might implode from the pressure. The door seemed to bend impossibly towards me, then away. I reeled, turning towards the kitchen and stepping onto nothing, as though my legs had disappeared. Before I could check if they were still intact, though, a convulsion seized me, I grabbed onto a door frame, leaned over and wretched. Nothing came up. I hadn’t eaten that day. Then I lowered myself to the floor and lay, face down, with my cheek against the wood. Somewhere in the distance I could hear a whistling sound.

I don’t know how long I stayed that way. Hours, maybe. Or it might have just seemed like hours. I can’t remember all my thoughts in that place, but at some point I flashed on the pregnancy test I’d taken that morning; a blue cross forming in a tiny window. I saw it materialise, over and over, then pushed it away. I’ll think about that tomorrow, I thought. And with that, Scarlett O’Hara’s voice was in my head and I was twelve years old again, lying in my mother’s bed watching Gone With The Wind. My mother. I should call my mother. I’d been recovering from a particularly horrendous bout of food poisoning. When she thought I was better she gave me apple juice and I vomited it back up, hot and thick. I haven’t drunk apple juice since. I should eat something. I need to eat. I need to call my mother. What will I tell her? What the hell is that whistling sound?!

It was me. I was sucking air through what felt like a tiny hole in my throat and my long, laboured breaths were producing a sound not unlike nails on a chalkboard. I probably would have passed out had my stomach not growled so loudly that the sound actually startled me. I told myself, out loud, to get off the floor, then I scrambled my way back up the door frame and eventually wobbled my way to the kitchen like a fawn on brand new legs. I ate a piece of dry toast and went to bed, where I lay howling, till I fell asleep. I had never cried like that before. The sounds were guttural and animalistic, and I let them come.
The next morning, I went to a friend’s house to work on a script. We were on a deadline and I had no choice, but I was also thankful for the distraction. Several times that day I excused myself, vomited in his toilet, then got back to work. The day after that I got my hair cut, went to the bank and had a meeting at my publicist’s office. I was in shock and I knew it. But I decided that as long as I was still functioning I should get as much done as possible. I felt like I’d been stabbed and at any moment the knife might be pulled out, sending blood gushing everywhere and forcing me to deal with my injuries. Until then though, I would continue about my business—knife and all.
The third day was the charm. I actually felt myself go. People talk about hearts breaking all the time but I don’t know how many of them have felt their brain break. It’s an interesting sensation.
I packed a bag and got a taxi to the airport, where I marched up to the check-in desk in a headscarf and sunglasses, and asked for a one way ticket on the next flight to Ireland. I’d become a walking, talking, scarf-clad cliche.
By the time I landed in Dublin, I had become a jittery mess and agitated; I knew I couldn’t keep myself going for much longer. So the hour-long wait at passport control was a real fucking treat. When I got through the arrival gates and saw my mother waiting there for me, it took every shred of strength I had left not to collapse into her arms and allow myself to fall apart. As she approached me I held one hand out in front of my and looked her with a face that I hoped said, “I love you dearly, but for the love of God do not attempt to show me affection right now.” She took my case and walked me to her car in complete silence.
I stayed in Dublin for a week, where I spent every day on the sofa, with her next to me in an armchair. We talked endlessly about my failed relationship, and what would happen next. I refused to simply wait, and let things unfold, I insisted on speculating incessantly about every single aspect of it; why he left, whether he’d come back, if he was seeing someone else, if maybe we could be friends. She nodded at me and cried with me and most importantly, she prevented me from calling him.
I couldn’t eat. I was hungry, but the physical act of swallowing food made me gag. She fed me food in tiny portions; segments of sausage on my niece’s plastic Spider-Man plate, sandwiches cut into four triangles—the deal was she’d eat two if I ate two. I was a child again. She even put sugar in my tea, something I gave up years ago. Anything to get calories into me.
Phone calls were made. Family members were notified. Condolences were offered. A break-up is like a death without a funeral.
At night, I took sleeping pills, which had been prescribed to my mother after a surgery last winter to remove one of her kidneys. I remember the night she called me; I was stood in the frozen food aisle of a Tesco Metro with a packet of peas in one hand and my phone in the other. She rambled on at length about hospitals and positive thinking and whether or not she’d be fit to cook Christmas dinner, and all I had actually heard were the words "tumour" and "malignant".
“Are we talking about the C word here?” I asked.
“Cunt!?” she bellowed. She hates that word.
“No,” I said, “The other one.”
“Oh,” she replied, much more quietly, “Yes, love. We are.”
After we hung up I stood a while longer, till I could no longer feel my hand, then I put back the bag of peas, abandoned the basket of food by my feet and had wine for dinner instead.
I came home for the Christmas holidays and nursed her better and in a strange, sick way I was thankful I’d had the chance to do that, to preemptively make up for the care she was giving me now.
I probably shouldn’t have taken those pills, but sleep would not come without them and I was so desperate for it. Every time I closed my eyes I was met with a flurry of memories that seemed to lash against the inside of my head. They came to me, unbidden; the good and the bad ones, the significant, the mundane, and among the debris I saw fragments of a life I might have lived. If I’d just done this. If I’d just said that. I played out every scenario, every what if, a hundred times and more and I never reached a solution. Because there was none. Every morning, somewhere between dreaming and waking, the blurry memory of what had happened slid into focus and I cried anew for what I’d lost.
One night, my pain became palpable. My emotions were manifesting as real, physical pain. I lay in bed, hands on my chest in some sort of weird attempt to grab onto my own heart and hold it together. I was sure that it was literally ripping apart inside me. How else could it possibly hurt this much? My mind, too, felt torn. Pieces of it were coming away and I wondered if I would ever get them back. My body moved about as though independent of me, fists clenching, feet scraping against the sheets, all of me, every inch, incapable of rest.
Somewhere, deep in that night, the pain consumed me. The thought of being happy again was inconceivable. And even though all I wanted was to sleep, the thought of waking up, still feeling this way, was torturous. I thought about the pills then, in my mother’s room; there was a whole bottle of them in her dresser drawer. I thought about going in there, returning to my bed with them and swallowing every last one. I walked through it in my mind again and again. But when I played it through to the grim conclusion—her finding me in the morning—I knew her grief would be infinitely worse than whatever I was feeling now. And so I prayed. Not to God—I don’t believe in God—I prayed to myself. I begged myself to just get me through this night. I told myself that I would be good, I would be strong, and I would be kind to myself, if I could just get through this night.
Sleep found me. And in the morning the fever had broken.
In the days that followed I thought about grief; how nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories but until you experience it for yourself you can’t possibly understand. There’s no going around it. Or under or over it. You’ve got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so massive you are smacked against the shore. It will permeate the very fabric of your life, so that everything you do is stained by it; every moment, good or bad, is seeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments, the achievements and successes, are tinged with the knowledge that someone or something is missing. And the first time that you smile, or laugh, you catch yourself, because happiness feels so unfamiliar.
I thought too, how like an addict I had been, how similar this was to some kind of detox. I wondered how much of the feeling of love is chemicals and cravings and dependency, and how much of the act of love is habit.
Eventually, loving someone becomes muscle memory. You don’t even notice it happening. One day you realise you’ve stopped living together and started existing near to one another. The path you once walked side by side has become two paths, which twist and wind their way around each other, occasionally intersecting long enough for a conversation full of clunky exposition that reveals nothing about the characters. You ask what time the other will be home from work, what they fancy for dinner, if they’ve remembered so and so’s birthday tomorrow. They tell you about their day with no humour or anecdotes, just a list of events in chronological order. You cook for two, buy toilet roll for two, book train tickets, sign cards and RSVP for two. Your autopilot gets set to two.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, in fact, I think there’s something kind of beautiful about it; your mind and body adapting so deftly to the presence of another person that the mingling of two lives, two stories, two sets of thoughts and beliefs, feels effortless. How you behave, how you think, the choices you make, are all subconsciously affected by how they will affect your significant other. It’s possible for someone to occupy a space in your life for so long and in such a specific way, that their absence creates a very real sense that a part of you is missing. It is indeed beautiful. But when that’s all there is, it’s not enough.
I’d like to tell you there was an inciting incident, a reason we ceased to function as a couple, but it was more like a slow, creeping disdain. In the end, habit was all we had left, and I came to realise that what I’d lost, was lost a long time ago. For almost two years our relationship had been the romantic equivalent of a zombie—a walking, talking, undead imitation of us—and it was finally being put to rest.

Out of Love

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