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Pippa Jones is a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing, Podlusters, had to be tossed (it ended up sharing a plot and title with superstar author Ella Rankin’s summer blockbuster!), she couldn’t write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only five days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she’s already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her twelve-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved.

Pippa’s not only going to make a bold statement, but she’ll change the book world while she’s at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn’t have a choice.

When Pippa’s publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming. From the courtyards of posh Beverly Hills hotels and Malibu mega-mansions to Brentwood and Santa Monica bookstores, Pippa races against time―in her used Volvo―and discovers more about her career, marriage, family, friends, and herself than she ever could have dreamed up.

A wife, mother, and frustrated writer faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around in a hilarious debut novel about family, friendship, success, and exhilarating self-(re)discovery.

Zibby is on the road for the Zibby-verse tour including 23 U.S. States and 40+ authors.

Learn more here.

Trailer

Produced by Lesley Turner

About the Author

Zibby Owens — like Pippa — wears a lot of hats. She is the award-winning host of daily podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books; CEO of the Zibby Books publishing house; owner of Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica, CA; and creator of “the Zibby-verse” (L.A. Times), a community of book lovers and authors with retreats, events, classes, a book club, and more.

Zibby, a regular contributor to GMA and other outlets with a weekly essay column on Substack, also wrote Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, children’s book Princess Charming, and edited two anthologies.

She lives in New York with her four kids ages 9 to 16 and her husband Kyle of Morning Moon Productions. Follow her on Instagram and Substack where she tells it like it is.

Press: Round-ups

Press: Trade Reviews

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Hadassah Magazine
Jewish Book Council
Booklist
Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews

Press: Podcasts

Advance Praise


"Zibby Owens is a tremendous champion for writers, and it’s thrilling to see her own storytelling shine in this smart debut novel about marriage, motherhood and finding your purpose. BLANK is a romp through the publishing world and a delightful gift to book lovers.”

— Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Meet Me at the Lake and Every Summer After

"Leave it to Zibby Owens to write a novel about a lovable woman single-handedly disrupting the publishing industry. BLANK explores marriage, parenting, friendship and the competitive hi-jinks of the book trade with the perfect amount of wit and light-touch humor. I devoured this book in a single sitting." 

- Annabel Monaghan, Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer


“This is a sunny rom-com with a deep, dark heart--comedic and sad in equal measures. Yes, it's a meta-satire about the publishing industry, but it's also an authentically serious story about the pressure to be everything to everyone. Or, in other words, about what it means to be a woman.”

- Catherine Newman, We All Want Impossible Things

“Zibby Owens captures every writer's nightmare in her fiction debut. Someone beats you to the bookshelves with basically the same book you are currently writing. Add to this some genuine home drama, financial worries, and trouble in paradise, and you have a book that you race through because you just want to know what is going to happen!”

- Laurie Gelman, the Class Mom series

“I read it in one sitting, and loved it.  BLANK has Zibby’s inimitable voice, of course, and she also has told a story which feels like a parable not only of her own story, in ways, but of publishing, which is to say a novel that dovetails with the movement she herself has built, inspiring women to tell their stories, inspiring authors to tear down old walls.”

-Lea Carpenter, author of Ilium, Eleven Days, and Red White Blue

"A witty romp, BLANK is the perfect addition to book lovers' bedside tables. An insider's view of the publishing industry and a wise and beautiful celebration of love, BLANK kept me happily reading all night and left me bereft when I reached the end of my journey with Owens' wise and fabulous heroine, Pippa."

-Amanda Eyre Ward, The Lifeguards and The Jetsetters

“A delectable, engaging romp through the upper crust of the L.A. and New York literary worlds but refreshingly grounded and relatable, BLANK is like sharing a cool glass of pinot gris with Zibby on a hot day, which is to say: A total treat.”

- Bess Kalb, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me


"BLANK is full of wit, verve, and heart—a whirlwind ride with a heroine you can’t help rooting for. Readers will laugh, wince, and cheer as Poppie writes the next (blank?) chapter of her career, navigates the pain of betrayal, and seizes the happiness she deserves."

-Jane Roper, The Society of Shame

“Is there anything literary North Star Zibby Owens can't do? Add novelist to her list of breaking-down-the-barriers accomplishments, and here, in this smart, hilarious, ingenious, and absolutely inspiring novel, Owens ebulliently cracks open marriage, motherhood, female friendship, social media, the perils of publishing--and our yearning to be seen, loved and understood. I was turning pages so fast, I nearly gave myself whiplash.”

-Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and With or Without You