Matt Dunn’s, Pug Actually, a cute and quirky modern romcom, has won big with HarperCollins imprints, on both sides of the Atlantic.
UK & Commonwealth rights have gone to HarperCollins / HQ Digital, whilst US rights have sold to HarperCollins / Mira. There will be a simultaneous eBook release in June 2021, with a UK hardback to follow in autumn.
Matt already has an impressive track record, having sold over 400,000 copies of his previous novels. He’s has been shortlisted twice for RNA Romantic Novel of the Year and has six top ten bestsellers to his name. This heart-warming romantic comedy is told from the perspective of Doug the pug, who embarks on mission to to save his adoring owner, Julie, from a life of spinsterhood by taking her tumultuous love life into his own…paws.
Not all heroes wear capes, some of them wear collars.
Rescue dog Doug wants his owner, Julie, to be happy. He loves her unconditionally, and he’s loyal – two things that can’t be said about Julie’s boss, Alex.
Alex and Julie are sleeping together. But Alex is married. And despite repeated promises he’ll leave his wife ‘soon’, Doug’s certain he’s just stringing Julie along. But Julie refuses to break off the affair, worried that this is as good as she gets, and she might end up like her crazy, cat-owning spinster neighbour. It’s a prospect that horrifies Doug as much as her being with Alex does.
Newly-divorced Luke, on the other hand, is perfect for her and everyone can see it – except for Luke and Julie. Perhaps, with Doug’s help, they can get over their initial animosity towards each other.
Doug struggles to understand, navigate, and influence the quirks of human relationships, but he knows he can’t give up on Julie – after all, being a ‘rescue’ dog works both ways…
Explaining how his own family pet, Patch, inspired the story of Doug, Matt elaborated: “Dogs are supposedly pretty good judges of character. Growing up, our family pet Patch certainly seemed to be – especially where my sister’s boyfriends were concerned, sitting at their feet, growling menacingly at any he disapproved of, going crazy for the ‘good’ ones. He was smart, too – ‘he understands every word you say,’ my dad was fond of telling people. So I got to thinking, what if that was true? If so, surely any dog worth his salt wouldn’t sit idly by and watch his owner put themselves through the emotional wringer? Not if he was smart enough to do something about it. And just like that, Doug the Pug came into existence.”
Previously, he’s worked as a professional lifeguard, fitness-equipment salesman, and most recently, an I.T. head-hunter (where his success in re-writing other people’s CVs made him think he might have a talent for fiction), but he prefers writing novels for a living, so please keep buying his books!
