A Beginner's Guide To Salad: Fun Facts

Ruth and Billy’s favourite sitcom was originally going to be How I Met Your Mother, but then I decided to have a bit of fun and make up my own, playing on the book’s title.


Ruth and Billy’s favourite tv show, A Beginner’s Guide To You, revolves around Meg and Tom, whose names were inspired by the main actors from You’ve Got Mail.


Billy and Theo were named after the characters in the Bill & Ted films. Theo even has the same surname as Ted.


The Roxy Fitness Centre was named after my old local cinema, which unfortunately is no more *sobs*


Ruth’s older brother, Stephen, is named after the American comedy singer/songwriter, Stephen Lynch.


Stephen lives in New York with his American wife. I wrote a Christmas short story about how they met and you can read it here


Poplar Ave, where Ruth, Billy and Stephen grew up is real. I grew up there myself and have some very fond memories of playing marbles, rounders and curby with the other kids on the street.


The school reunion was inspired when my own former high school was bulldozed and a new academy opened.


In the original version, Ruth and Zack were conducting a secret relationship. Zack dumped Ruth in the restaurant, which broke her heart and caused her to flee to Stephen and Billy.

When it was first published, A Beginner's Guide To Salad had a different cover, and there's a nod to the original cover on the spine of the paperback edition.

Ruth loves nothing more than curling up in front of the telly with a family-sized bar of chocolate. She doesn’t do diets and she certainly doesn’t do exercise. But all that changes when she’s invited to her school reunion.

Bullied at school for being overweight, Ruth’s first reaction is to rip the invitation into a million pieces. But then Ruth hatches a plan. She’ll lose the weight and arrive at the reunion looking gorgeous and glamorous, leaving her old classmates in awe. Especially her former crush, Zack O’Connell.

With the help of her friends and a new, unbelievably hot colleague, Ruth begins her transformation. With six months until the reunion, losing weight will be a piece of cake, right?

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