Join authors Lucy Powrie and Elle McNicoll for an online in-conversation event to celebrate the publication of Lucy’s new book, Real When I’m With You! Find out what makes the perfect summer romance, the fun of the fake dating trope, and writing neurodivergent joy in YA literature.

Real When I'm With You is a hot chocolate hug of a romance. Meet Effie and Aiden, two teenagers who meet at a local coffee shop and fake date to prove to their peers – and themselves – they've got what it takes to be in a relationship. But as their fake feelings start to feel ... real, can Effie cast aside what everyone else thinks and follow her heart? A summer of fake dating just got real.

Lucy Powrie is a neurodivergent author whose dream is to fill bookshelves with as many books featuring proudly autistic and ADHD characters as possible – just like her. She makes bookish videos as lucythereader to an audience of over 45,000 subscribers, and enjoys passionately sharing her love for old books, the Brontë sisters, and the 1995 BBC miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When she's not writing or reading, she can be found cuddling her corgi, Margie, and looking after her herd of adorable guinea pigs.

Elle McNicoll is a bestselling and award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her debut, A Kind of Spark, won the Blue Peter Book Award and the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, as well as Blackwell’s Book of 2020. She is a five time Carnegie nominated author, and was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024, the Branford Boase Award 2020 and The Little Rebels Award 2020 and 2021. She was also honoured in the US with the Schneider Award, 2022. A Kind of Spark has also been adapted for television, which debuted on UK and US screens on the 2nd of April, 2023. Her first Young Adult novel, Some Like It Cold, is an award nominated YA debut. She is an advocate for better representation of neurodiversity in publishing, as an autistic and dyspraxic novelist, and currently lives in North London.

An evening in with Lucy Powrie & Elle McNicoll – Real When I’m With You online launch