Excerpt from UNAPOLOGETIC LOVE STORY by Elle McNicoll:
CHAPTER ONE
The receptionist had been expecting a neurotypical.
Agnes Merchant was an all-girls establishment, with a strict uniform code and fees that could get up to six figures, once you factored in donations to the new alumni hall. This day was World Autism Day, and in a show of real inclusivity, the faculty had invited two speakers for a special assembly. The first, a representative from a charity, had already arrived. She was sitting in the green room—a slightly severe woman in her fifties who’d only met a handful of autistic people in her life, despite making them the sole focus of her career. She cast suspicious looks at the students as they passed by.
The second guest stood before the receptionist.
“Can I help you?”
The guest smiled. The date of birth she’d given when signing in set her age at twenty-eight but she looked younger. Her hair was long and blond with streaks of pink, a soft cerise that happened to match the fluffy cowgirl boots she was wearing.
“I’m Raina Lewis. The podcaster. You’re expecting me.”
The receptionist was stunned. That couldn’t possibly be true. She aggressively flipped through her logbook and pulled up a document on her geriatric computer.
“I’m a speaker,” the young woman added softly. “For today’s assembly?”
“Let me call Miss Lamb,” the receptionist squeaked, grabbing the phone. She punched in the extension number and slammed the earpiece to the side of her head, quivering as she waited for the other member of staff to pick up.
The young woman’s eyes were not visible through her dark sunglasses, but she smiled, amused by the scene before her.
“Hi, Carol, yes,” the receptionist gabbled into the phone. “I have a … a Miss Lewis here with me—”
Miss Lamb interrupted to say that she’d be right along and then hung up the phone. The receptionist listened to the dial tone for a few seconds before dazedly putting the receiver down.
“She’ll be right along,” she echoed faintly.
“Good,” said the young woman serenely. “Thank you. You did really well.”
The receptionist gaped, not sure whether to be grateful or offended by the teasing compliment.
Miss Lamb made her way down the long corridor from her office to reception. This was her fifth year teaching at the Agnes Merchant School for Girls and she was determined to see this assembly go ahead without a cough, sneeze, “Please, Miss?” or strategic escape to the nurse.
The Year Nine girls were filing into the assembly hall, where teachers were poised with makeup wipes.
“Katie has too much eyeliner on,” Miss Lamb called to Mrs. Perkins before she finally reached reception. “All right, Miss Lewis, it’s a pleasure to meet—”
Her words fell away as she laid eyes on the visitor, her outstretched hand frozen in the air like it belonged on a mannequin.
The whole assembly had been Miss Lamb’s idea. She’d found the speakers. Granted, she’d not spent more than ten minutes doing so, but her choices had seemed sound and reasonable at the time. Frances Horn, charity spokesperson, had arrived very early and was exactly what Miss Lamb had expected. Serious and dull. Destined for an MBE in charity work.
Raina Lewis was entirely unexpected.
“You’re Miss Lewis?” Carol Lamb asked gingerly. “The speaker? The speaker on neurodiversity? That’s you? The autistic speaker?”
Raina popped her bubblegum and beamed sunnily. “Ding ding.”
Miss Lamb was flabbergasted. She’d hired this speaker from a website that advertised “actually autistic” people. She’d skim-read the biography, admittedly, because it didn’t really matter. They just needed fifteen minutes of inspirational talk.
“If you’ll please walk with me,” she finally managed to say, gesturing toward the green room. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Oh, yes,” Raina answered calmly. “Absolutely everything.”
“Good, good, good, good, good,” Miss Lamb said, her voice firing the same word out like bullets from an overly concerned machine gun as they reached the green room. “If you’ll follow me then.” She suddenly remembered Frances Horn was the reason for stopping by the green room. “Both of you.”
Raina Lewis followed the flustered teacher with an angelic smile. She was entirely used to this kind of display. When people decided that they wanted to book a speaker to talk about autism, they were always fooled by Raina’s rather competent biography. No photograph, of course. Just a list of her credentials and her successful podcast—something they never researched or listened to. They would always build up an imaginary version of her in their minds. A grave, serious speaker with no sense of humor. Someone who would come with a slideshow of misery, leaving people half asleep but hopefully a little more informed. The perfect ticked box, a job well done!
The reality of Raina would always leave them agitated. Autistic women, in the narrow corners of these people’s minds, weren’t supposed to be successful. They weren’t supposed to be attractive. They weren’t supposed to be colorful, or stylish, or someone who could draw attention and take up space.
Raina liked it that way. She liked upending whatever they thought. She liked shoving aside the fictional version in their head and taking her place.
From UNAPOLOGETIC LOVE STORY by Elle McNicoll. Copyright © 2026 by the author, and reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
UNAPOLOGETIC LOVE STORY by Elle McNicoll
The dazzling debut new adult romance novel from bestselling author, Elle McNicoll. For fans of Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, this is big-hearted and full of bite!
An unapologetic celebration of love, relationships, and the women who have historically been shut out of such stories, until now . . . Elle McNicoll is about to become everyone’s favorite new name in new adult romance.
Enter Raina Lewis, London?s hottest It Girl – effortlessly cool, endlessly intriguing, and beloved for her smash-hit podcast spotlighting autistic women. But not everyone?s convinced by the hype. Investigative journalist and ?King of Cancel Culture?, Tom Branimir is sure there?s more to Raina than meets the eye. He?s determined to uncover her secret. That is… if he can just manage not to fall for her first.
Romance Contemporary [ Saturday Books, On Sale: October 13, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250450319 / eISBN: 9781250388117 ]
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About Elle McNicoll
Elle McNicoll is a bestselling and award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her debut, A Kind of Spark, won the Blue Peter Book Award and the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, as well as Blackwell’s Book of 2020. She is a four time Carnegie nominated author, and was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards 2020, 2021 and 2022, the Branford Boase Award 2020 and The Little Rebels Award 2020 and 2021. She was also honoured in the US with the Schneider Award, 2022. Her second novel, Show Us Who You Are, was Blackwell’s Book of the Month and one of The Bookseller’s Best Books of 2021. Her first fantasy middle grade, Like a Charm, was nominated for Best Children’s Book for Older Readers in the first ever Week Junior Book Awards, and was highly praised in the New York Times. Her debut novel, A Kind of Spark, has also been adapted for television, which debuted on UK and US screens on the 2nd of April, 2023. It is Emmy nominated and won Best Children’s Programme at the Broadcast Awards in London, 2024 and is now streaming in many territories around the globe. A second season is currently in production. Her debut was named as one of the greatest children’s books of all time, coming in at number 75, and she is twice nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Her YA debut, Some Like It Cold, will be published on October 1st (US) and October 3rd (UK). She is an advocate for better representation of neurodiversity in publishing, and currently lives in North London.
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