Stellar news, everyone: in the thirteen years since Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, our plucky heroine has not, as yet, been half-eaten by an Alsatian. We don’t think. Yesterday, on the British radio program Woman’s Hour, author Helen Fielding announced that everyone’s dysfunctional singleton will return in a new novel slated to hit shelves next fall.
The novel, which is set in present-day London, will feature some of our favorite characters — though some have fallen by the wayside, Fielding hints.And instead of her usual tallies of alcohol units, cigarettes and calories, Bridget will be woefully monitoring her social media presence: “It’s more like ‘number of Twitter followers: 0. Still no followers. Still no followers’. But she has grownup. My life has moved on and hers will move on too,” Fielding says. “In the same way as the first Bridget book was looking at the way a 30-something single woman was branded as a tragic spinster, and then we got the new idea of a singleton, [the new book] will be looking at later phases in life when you get branded as a certain thing, and you don’t have to be that at all and it’s all outdated and ridiculous. I’m having a lot of fun and it’s very funny and it’s making me laugh. It’s a bit scary bringing out another one but I’m really enjoying writing it.” We bet, and we absolutely cannot wait to read it. Read more from Fielding’s interview at The Guardian.