THE BOOK LAUNCH that REMADE ME

Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie

Three weeks before my 39th birthday, another relationship ended. I was staring down the barrel of my 40s – divorced, single, with no children – having had three miscarriages and failed IVF.

In the months that followed, thinking about failure and vulnerability was the genesis of my How To Fail podcast, which gathered momentum like I’d never imagined and landed me my first non-fiction book deal. The launch party for that book, on a bright spring day a year later, was the moment the strands of my life felt like they were coming back together.

I’d met the man who is now my husband on my first and last Hinge date some months before and, although it was my fifth book launch, it was the first where I’d felt so fully myself. I wasn’t pretending anymore – in work or love.

My outfit embodied this new phase of life. After scouring the internet, I ordered a one-shouldered midnight-blue velvet dress with feathers, by Magda Butrym at Farfetch.

It was so unlike me, yet felt so truthful. It wasn’t what

I thought I should wear, or a sensible purchase. It was a dress I wanted. A make-up artist slicked back my hair and gave me the smokiest of eyes. It was dramatic and I felt good – even if my father commented that I looked like a goth.

I was one of the first to arrive at the private room I’d hired in

Soho’s Groucho Club. It was special to watch every person integral to my life’s journey crammed under one loving roof. Old friends sipped Aperol Spritzes with new colleagues, my family nattered with former editors and there were even podcast guests such as campaigner Gina Miller and poet Charly Cox. One hundred smiling faces brimmed with pride. It was like a wedding, without the hassle of getting married.

As Etta James played, my new boyfriend Justin walked in with a massive bunch of flowers, beaming with joy on my behalf. It was the first time he’d met many of my friends and he slipped into my friendship groups with ease. Predictably, my playlist geared up to 1990s hip-hop for the afterparty, where we ate pizza, got drunk and danced until the early hours.

The book marked a watershed moment in my career when it quickly became a bestseller. But the party also signified my emergence from dark times; I was finally accepted and understood for who I really am. And that’s a person who wants to wear feathers and velvet. Although my life hasn’t panned out how I thought it would, it turned out to be so much better. Magpie is out 2 September

That charge, that hopeful excitement as you add eyeliner and swig PRE-PARTY G&T