What is the title of your latest release?
THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A big, sexy tearjerker. Marc Lacourt might have great cheekbones and a sexy French accent but he’s a terrible person who did a terrible thing to Cassie the first time they met. Too bad that Cassie’s best friends Lucy and Russell think he’s wonderful.
But years later, when an unexpected tragedy strikes their friendship group, Cassie and Marc team up to give Lucy and Russell the best weekend ever. Which means convincing everyone that Cassie and Marc are head over heels in love.
After hating him for so long, it takes four bittersweet days for Cassie to wonder if she got Marc all wrong. Can they let go of their troubled past and together, face whatever the future is going to throw at them?
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Most of my books are set in London, where I live, but I knew that the largest part of THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER, had to be set by the sea. So I borrowed the gorgeous Arts & Crafts house situated on a cliff top on the Sussex Downs, which appeared tangentially in another one of my novels, AFTER THE LAST DANCE.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Absolutely! Cassie is a ride or die friend, thoughtful, kind but also delightfully petty (she can hold a grudge like no one else) is obsessed with reality TV and gets free beauty products from her job.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Sardonic, misunderstood, forearms
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I’ve written over thirty novels but one lesson that I always need to relearn is to just slow things down and let the words and the story take their time. This was especially so with THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER, when I really wanted to lean in to all the big, messy, conflicted feelings in the novel.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
My writing mantra is “don’t get it right, get it written!” I usually deliver to my agent and editor on a third draft, sometimes a fourth, which has only been seen by me until then.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I love a baked good. One drawer of my freezer is home to my sweet treats stash. Cookies, cakes, brownies; all waiting to be taken out whenever the craving hits.
Describe your writing space/office!
I am really lucky to have a room simply to write in and nothing else. It’s a big room, which gets lots of afternoon sun and most of the walls are lined with bookshelves. My desk is a vintage 1950s kitchen table and on the wall above it is an art print of the London Underground system called The Great Bear by Simon Patterson, where the tube lines and station names have been replaced by everything from philosophers, saints and footballers. Also, it is very cluttered because I am yet to embrace a paperless future.
Who is an author you admire?
I love Marian Keyes. Her book RACHEL’S HOLIDAY was a huge inspiration to me when I was writing my debut adult novel, UNSTICKY (before then I’d written YA). She has such a strong authorial voice, creates wonderfully flawed characters and is able to transition from snotty-nosed, teary-eyed heartbreak to snort-Diet-Coke-out of your nostrils humor within the space of one line. Marian is also endlessly supportive of other writers. She is the absolute best of us.
Is there a book that changed your life?
Virginia Woolf’s A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN, which gave me, the first person in my family to go to University, permission to be a writer. “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters”
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I didn’t get the call, but I did get “the email!” I was staff writer on a UK teen mag called Just Seventeen and wrote a fictional column called Diary of a Crush. Prior to that, I had tried to get an agent but was told repeatedly that my ideas were too left-field and not what teens wanted to read. Then a book editor emailed me out of the blue to say that she loved Diary of a Crush and had I ever thought about writing a novel? Yes! Yes, I had. I can remember feeling utterly dumbfounded and also very excited. Within three weeks I had a book deal for the YA novel which had been turned down by all those agents. GUITAR GIRL went on to be a massive bestseller both in the UK and the US and some twenty years later, I’m still very proud to call myself a novelist.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I do read widely but romance will always be where I’m at my happiest and most fulfilled as a reader (and a writer).
What’s your favorite movie?
It is so cruel to make me pick just one! I can narrow it down to three: A Room With A View, When Harry Met Sally and The Way We Were.
What is your favorite season?
Americans would call it fall but I call it autumn, which is very on brand for someone who’s written a novel called THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER! I love the days getting shorter, the fallen leaves crunching underfoot, wearing layers, eating crumble and life generally getting cozier.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I’m an August baby, which always means that people are on their summer hols when I’m trying to celebrate. So, I tend to go for a low-key lunch or dinner with whoever’s around on the day and as friends return from their vacations, there are more lunches and dinners, and I can spread out the celebrations for a good two or three weeks.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast is a highlight of my week. It’s such a lovely safe space and Amy is so good at matching the energy of her guests. I can’t listen to it in public though because I will always end up laughing like a loon. I’m also a massive Bravo fangirl and after resisting for so long, I am now in my Below Deck era and not leaving anytime soon!
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I know it gets a bad (and completely unjustified IMO) rep but I really love British cuisine. Our Sunday roasts are elite. But if I’m going to a restaurant, I will usually choose a good Italian. There are very few problems in life which can’t be made better with a sizzling portion of lasagna.
What do you do when you have free time?
I read, I watch Below Deck, I love seeing friends and I live in a really pretty part of London, where we’re lucky to have some beautiful green spaces and woodland so I try to get out into nature as often as I can.
What can readers expect from you next?
My next novel, THE LOVE LIBRARY, will be published in the UK at the end of June. I really wanted to write something lighthearted and fun after the big feelings of THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER. It’s about a library where borrowers can take out characters from books. My heroine Tess is desperate to date Mr. Darcy from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, but grumpy head librarian Gabe is determined to thwart her plans.
A Novel
A heartfelt, funny, yet deliciously spicy enemies-to-lovers romcom set during a long summer weekend at an exquisite British seaside resort, centered around a group of old friends whose lives are about to change forever.
Sometimes all it takes is one long summer weekend for the person you thought you hated to become something more . . .
After a disastrous first meeting, Cassie and Marc are instant archnemeses. Despite Marc’s frustratingly sharp cheekbones and sexy French accent—and the fact that Cassie's best friends Lucy and Russell think he’s wonderful—Cassie is convinced that Marc’s a terrible person who did a terrible thing, full stop.
But, years later, when their friends are hit with bad news, Cassie and Marc decide to put aside their differences and give Lucy and Russell the best weekend ever. While they can’t change the past, they can help their friends make new memories with all of their favorite people. Which means convincing everyone that Cassie and Marc are head over heels in love, since their best friends have always thought they would be perfect together, and badly wish each would find an ideal partner.
After years of loathing Marc, it only takes four bittersweet days for Cassie to reconsider whether she got the man completely wrong all these years. But can the two let go of their troubled past, and together, face whatever the future will throw at them? Or is this doomed to be just another steamy vacation fling, never again to be acknowledged or repeated?
Romance | Women's Fiction Family Life | Women's Fiction Friendship [ HarperCollins, On Sale: June 2, 2026, Paperback / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780063484818 / eISBN: 9780063484832 ]
Sarra Manning has been a voracious reader for over forty years and a prolific author and journalist for thirty. She has written over twenty-five novels, both YA and adult. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Telegraph, Elle, Grazia, Stylist, You Magazine, and Harper’s Bazaar. She lives in London surrounded by piles and piles of books.
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