Discussion Questions
1. The heroine of Just Haven’t Met You Yet, Laura, is a journalist specializing in all things love. What do we know about her love life? How does her job inform her outlook on life?
2. We learn early on that Laura is very attached to her parents’ epic romance. How did her par-
ents meet, and how does their love story dictate what Laura wants in her own life? Why does she decide to write an article about them?
3. When Laura accidentally picks up the wrong suitcase at the Jersey airport, she is convinced
that she has found her soulmate. What would you do with the suitcase if you were in Laura’s shoes? What items would convince you you’d found your soulmate?
4. Though Laura enjoys certain elements of her job as a journalist, she doesn’t find real fulfillment in it. What is her true calling, and how does she come to realize that?
5. Ted, the cab driver who ferries Laura around Jersey for her article, has a complicated romantic past himself. What were your first impressions of Ted, and what do we come to learn about his gruff demeanor?
6. The
majority of Just Haven’t Met You Yet takes place in Jersey, which is part of the Channel Islands in the UK. Why is it a special place for Laura, and what were your first impressions of it? How does the sense of community play into the story?
7. This novel is full of wonderful and vivid secondary characters, including Laura’s family, friends, and the residents of Jersey. Who were some of your favorites, and why?
8. There are excerpts of Tiger Woman and the Jersey Evening News interspersed throughout the novel. How did these elements play into your understanding of the story? What did you make of the ways in which these texts came together, and what surprised you?
9. Discuss the differences between Jasper and Ted. How does Laura grapple with those differences throughout the book? Why does she make the choice she does?
10. How important is the theme of memory in the novel? Laura’s mother believes objects can be
conduits for memory. Does Laura believe this too? How does her emotional investment in objects change as the story goes on?
11. What do you think is in store for Laura and the life she pursues at the end of the book?
A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H
x Bu Ma
©
r ne t t
Sophie Cousens
What inspired Just Haven’t Met You Yet?
A friend came to stay with us in Jersey and picked up the wrong suitcase at the baggage carousel. When he realized his mistake, he called the airport and they gave him the number of the girl who had unwittingly picked up his bag. He called her and, rather than both head back to the airport, they arranged to meet in person to exchange the cases. I remember thinking at the time that this would be a great start to a love story! The girl‘s case was full of sexy underwear, and clearly she was visiting the island for a hot mini-break, whereas my friend‘s case was full of nappies and children’s toys as he was here with his wife and baby. So sadly, this real-life romance was never going to take off, but it was still a great start to a story and I tucked it away in my brain for future inspiration. When our friend first opened the stranger‘s bag, before he realized it wasn’t his, I realized how much you can tell about someone just from their luggage. A book they might be reading, their style of clothes, how they pack—luggage is very personal. In Just Haven’t Met You Yet, Laura picks up the wrong suitcase and when she sees the contents, she instantly feels the bag must belong to her soulmate; everything in his bag speaks to her somehow. This idea of falling for someone you haven’t met yet purely because of the items they carry feels very romantic to me. Your book is about a woman who travels to the Channel Islands to retrace the steps of her parents’ love story. Is there a love story if your life that you hold particularly close? Yes! My parents have an amazing love story. My father was in the military and having a miserable time overseas during a difficult and dangerous conflict. A mutual friend put my parents in touch, and they started to write each other letters. They basically fell in love through words before they ever met. Their first meeting in real life was at the Polly Tea Rooms in a town called Marlbourgh, and is the reason my older sister was named Polly. I grew up hearing this story, and it always felt especially romantic to me—the idea of falling in love through letters, before you’ve even met. However, the thing about any great story is that it often gets embellished over time. I think when I told my parents’ story to friends, there was a time where I believed they got engaged before they’d even met, which I don’t think is actually true. Stories evolve in the telling, becoming almost mythical. In Just Haven’t Met You Yet, Laura holds her parents’ love story on a pedestal, and it has affected her own romantic expectations. How will any kind of love story live up to her parents one? I do think everyone wants to have that special story, that magical tale to tell, rather than just saying “We met at work,” or “they were a friend of a friend.” The novel examines this desire, and unpacks it a little; how important is it for a great love story to have a great beginning? In your novel, an airport becomes a stage for chance encounters and missed connections. Why did you choose to start your story here? In what ways is an airport romantic? Airports are a confluence of strangers all heading somewhere different, but for a short time, thrown together in close proximity. They provide a great opportunity to meet someone who you might never otherwise cross paths with. I think there is something intrinsically romantic in that, especially now, when our spheres for making real-life connections have only gotten smaller.
I know a couple who met at a luggage carousel. They stood together waiting for their bags and he asked for her number. Now they are married with three children. Anything might happen in an airport. That’s the beauty of it! In your previous novel, This Time Next Year, chance encounters also bring two people together. When finding The One, how much has to do with luck, and how much with fate? I love this question and it’s a theme that runs through a lot of my writing. This Time Next Year was very much about fate, and a sense of destiny being at play. Some people have compared the story to Taylor Swift’s song “Invisible Strings,” which I hadn’t listened to before, but now I have, I think “Yes, that’s Minnie and Quinn, drawn together over time by an invisible connection.” However, a few readers contacted me, having loved the book, with messages along the lines of “I loved This Time Next Year, and I’ve been really stressed about meeting my soulmate, but your book reminded me that the universe has it all in hand, so I’m just going to wait and not stress about it.” And I thought, “NO! Oh no, don’t be passive because of me!” Finding love can also be active, and can involve compromise and putting yourself out there. I actually read a statistic that said people who believe in “the one” are more likely to get divorced because they’re not as willing to compromise as those who don’t. You can read This Time Next Year in many different ways. You can believe in “the jinx” that follows Minnie around or you can believe it’s all in her head. That ambiguity was all a part of the story for me. I think it’s dangerous to believe fate is going to deliver something to your doorstep. You have to leave the house . . . unless you’re my parents, writing letters to each other, in which case, you don’t. Ha! In Just Haven’t Met You Yet, Laura firmly believes in fate and that the universe has delivered this suitcase to her for a reason, but she also makes an active choice to find this man. She’s not going to rest on her laurels and leave fate to do all the work. In fact, she goes to great lengths to find him, and I love this about Laura.
What items would you find in your dream man’s suitcase? • A thoughtful non-fiction book about our world like The Hidden Life of Trees, that belies his intelligence and his interest in nature and our environment. • A sexy cable-knit fisherman’s sweater (Laura finds one of these too). The kind Aiden from Sex and the City might wear as he mixes you a gin cocktail in his cabin in the woods. Any man who can pull off one of these gets my vote. • A map, charting a planned expedition to somewhere exciting, like Peru. (I’ll come too!) • Montblanc aftershave. My favorite smell on a man. • A giant Toblerone. Of course. Yum. • A notebook full of cheese-tasting notes, suggesting he works in the procurement of delicious cheeses and needs a sidekick to go travel the world eating cheese with. A girl can dream. . . . Just Haven’t Met You Yet is your sophomore novel. How did writing this book compare to writing the first? It was a very different experience as I wrote This Time Next Year in the evenings alongside my day job and looking after two young children. Now that I’m lucky enough to do this as my job, it definitely felt less pressured. I had more time to think about the characters, and the themes I wanted to convey. However, I was writing this one while all excitement of This Time Next Year was happening—becoming a New York Times bestseller, and being picked by the GMA book club. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on writing when it was much more fun to procrastinate by reading reviews and replying to lovely messages from readers and book bloggers. I am a terrible procrastinator, so every day is a fight with myself to get words on paper and not just google cute puppy videos and eat croissants. Ha! I think I might have enjoyed writing this novel more, partly because Laura is a more lighthearted character than Minnie, so it felt like there was more opportunity for humor. It’s also set in Jersey, where I live, and I loved putting the island I love onto the page.
This Time Next Year was a Good Morning America December 2020 Book Club pick (!). What was that experience like? I had to pinch myself so many times because my debut really did get the love and support every author only dreams of. It felt surreal to be on US TV, to have my book on a screen in Times Square and for the book to get so much fantastic exposure. I was also aware what an honor it was to be picked, and to be in such great company among so many other brilliant books. The only downside of all this is that I worry the bar has been set pretty high now. What am I going to do when all my books aren’t plastered up in Times Square? I’ll be walking around in a wearable billboard like the lady who feeds pigeons in Mary Poppins, telling anyone who will listen, “I was up there once, you know.” Who are some of your favorite romance authors? There are so many, but I especially love reading Emily Henry, Kirsty Greenwood, Lindsey Kelk, Mhairi McFarlane and Sophia Money Coutts. There are so many great authors out there, all with such varying tones, and I love discovering new voices, too. I read somewhere that a great romance novel replicates the feeling of falling in love. Isn’t that the best feeling in the world? I have huge admiration for any author who can make you feel that way with their writing. Romance novels are sometimes dismissed as being “easy reads” but it is not easy to write a book that is easy to read and that captures you in its pages and doesn’t let you go until the end. What pieces of pop culture—books, films, music, podcasts, etc., inspire you? I think my writing is inspired as much by films as it is books. I adore rom-com movies, and recently re-watched the Before trilogy directed by Richard Linklater. These three films really resonate with me, perhaps more so now than when I first watched Before Sunrise when I was fifteen. Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight are all shot with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy at nine-year intervals. They capture the evolution of how we feel about love and relationships in our twenties, thirties and forties. My next novel has definitely been directly influenced by these films and the themes they explore. Otherwise, honestly, my main inspiration actually comes from people, and from conversations with friends. I was feeling a little creatively dry during lockdown, only being with only my family and my laptop day after day. I love my family and my home, but I find my creativity is not fueled by the familiar. Finally, I got to visit friends in London whom I hadn’t seen in over a year. We talked about everything and nothing. We talked about love and life, and the joy and pain we had missed in one another’s lives. With the change of scenery, and these kinds of conversations, I felt my creative engine refueled. I realized how important real people and their stories are to my writing . . . and to my sanity. If you could travel to any place in the world, where would it be and why? I am desperate to come to New York, to see my book in a real bookshop. Part of me still doesn’t quite believe I really got published. I’ve only seen my book in one bookshop (because I live on a small island) and I can’t get my head around the idea that something I wrote would be in Barnes & Nobles all across America. I think I need to see it to believe it, so as soon as I can come, I’m coming, and I will be taking a lot of selfies in the romance aisle of every bookstore I can find. What’s next for you? More books. More romance. More explorations of fate and love and complicated characters. Mainly, more coffee and croissants and fighting the urge to be on TikTok all day.
Aunt Monica’s Sloe Gin Mule Ice 50 ml Sloe Gin (bought or homemade) One tall glass (or a mug, if you’re drinking before noon) A splash of sugar syrup A squeeze of lime A sprig of mint leaves Put ice and gin in glass. Add a splash of sugar syrup and the squeeze of lime. Top up with ginger beer and garnish with a sprig off mint. Ideal drinking location: in your garden, enjoying nature, while discussing with a friend how amazing hedgehogs are.
Gerry’s Seaside G&T Ice A wedge of lemon A spear of Samphire 5o ml Seaweed Gin Light tonic water Fill your glass with ice, pop in the lemon and samphire, then pour on the gin and tonic. Ideal drinking location: on the beach, looking out to sea, watching as the watery horizon acts as a spirit level for your soul.
JUST HAVEN’T MET YOU YET
Playlist
Curated by
Sophie Cousens
All these songs either have a direct connection to the book, or they are favorites of eightiesloving Laura. Of course, every other song is Phil Collins, as every playlist should be.
Haven’t Met You Yet Two Hearts
Michael Bublé
Phil Collins
Big Yellow Taxi
Joni Mitchell
In the Air Tonight
Phil Collins
Sweet Child O’Mine
Guns N’Roses
A Groovy Kind of Love New Sensation
Phil Collins
INXS
I Wish It Would Rain Down
Phil Collins
Islands in the Stream
Dolly Parton and
You Can’t Hurry Love
Phil Collins
Kenny Rogers
Shake It Off Sussudio
Taylor Swift
Phil Collins
We Didn’t Start the Fire
Billy Joel
Another Day in Paradise
Phil Collins
Laura
Scissor Sisters