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For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

June 2025: Sophie Cousens’ Is She Really Going Out With Him?

For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast

Jen Hatmaker

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.66.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Description: As a former TV producer turned novelist, Sophie Cousens’ books have been published in over 20 languages. Her previous novels—including This Time Next Year and Before I Do—have delighted readers around the world with their warmth, humor, and honest portrayal of love in all its messy, beautiful forms. Today, we sit down with Sophie to discuss her decade of experience producing some of our favorite TV shows like The Graham Norton Show and Big Brother and how that valuable experience behind the scenes in television shaped the way she now tells stories as a novelist, allowing her to thread the needle between heartfelt and funny, heartwarming and satirical. We talk about her approach to writing—does she prefer to start with a character or a plot?--as well as how she brilliantly employs a variety of  familiar rom-com setups (friends-to-lovers, missed connections, etc.) yet, they never feel overt or cliché. If you’ve ever tried to date post-divorce, juggled motherhood with figuring out who the heck you even are anymore, or questioned whether love in your 40s is even worth it—you’re going to enjoy today’s conversation about our June JHBC selection, Is She Really Going Out With Him?  With nods to fairy tales, dating apps, and the iconic Joe Jackson song that inspired the title, the book asks: how do you start over when you’re not 22 anymore—and how do you know when it’s real? Thought-provoking Quotes: “I’ve been a producer on shows that were much more produced—you've got a script, you've got a plan, you know exactly what you're getting; whereas with [Big Brother] we were just dealing with real people and real people's emotions and the experience of being in this slight madhouse.” – Sophie Cousens “Tropes are enduring because they are beloved. Sometimes, that word has a negative connotation but, in this case, it’s not true. These are story tropes that readers love. I love how you talk about them and go, no, I’m not going to steer away from them or try to reinvent them or try to avoid them. I’m going to go full-in.” – Jen Hatmaker “I absolutely love films of that 90s and 2000s era. That’s very much the tone in which I write. I think there’s something pure and simple about that era of films, which is why so many of them are enduring.” – Sophie Cousens Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Russel Howard’s Good News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00phwkz The Graham Norton Show - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006xnzc Big Brother - https://www.cbs.com/shows/big_brother/ Notting Hill (1999) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125439/ Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding - https://amzn.to/4dJsJ6y Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousens - https://amzn.to/45IC4tt And Then There Was You by Sophie Cousens COMING NOVEMBER 2025 - https://amzn.to/3Fq5SR4 Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion (1997)  - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120032/ Claudia Jessie (Eloise Bridgerton) - https://www.instagram.com/claudiajessies/?hl=en Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid - https://amzn.to/4mYRzUk Great, Big, Beautiful Life by Emily Henry - https://amzn.to/43IRYTp Julia Whelan, audio narrator - https://jmwhelan.com/narrator/ The Husbands: A Novel by Holly Gramazio - https://amzn.to/4dQnNx5 Holly Bourne, author - https://hollybourne.co.uk/ Guest’s Links: Website - https://www.sophiecousens.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sophie_cousens/ Twitter - https://x.com/sophiecous Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sophiecousensauthor Connect with Jen!Jen’s Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen’s Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmakerJen’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen’s Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmakerJen’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker The For the Love Podcast is presented by Audacy. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.6

hey everybody welcome to the show this is always one of my favorite episodes. This is the Jen Hatmaker

0:42.1

Book Club edition of the show in which I get to talk to the author of our book selection for this month.

0:50.9

This is a fantastic perk of being in the book club is we always have access to our author

0:57.2

and we get to ask her. We mostly feature female writers almost entirely. We've had a few good men in there

1:03.5

over the course of five years, but we mostly feature women and we get to ask them our questions.

1:08.7

And then they come into our book club for Zooms,

1:12.2

and we have this up close and personal access to them for the month, which feels really special.

1:17.2

But we love to bring this conversation to the big channel, too, in case you're a reader.

1:21.2

And you're like, hey, looking for a great author, looking for a great book, looking for a great title.

1:25.4

We are here for you.

1:26.8

So let me tell you about our

1:29.0

author for our June JHBC book club selection. We've got Sophie Cousins. You will likely know her if you

1:39.1

love the genre. So Sophie's a bestselling. She's a British author. Absolutely known for this razor sharp wit.

1:46.6

You know, that sort of British humor that is so ubiquitous and so fun.

1:50.2

Very charming characters.

1:52.1

Likeable, lovable.

1:55.3

Basically rom-coms.

...

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