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Wants and Needs
  • Published: 29 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241632772
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

Wants and Needs

Formats & editions
Hardback
5 May 2026
EBook
29 Jan 2026
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A novel about coming of age in your thirties: a woman embraces ethical non-monogamy as she tries to understand herself better, and finds a new kind of love along the way

Independence seems to be drifting away from Misty. Just months ago, she was living with her fiancé and planning their life together. Now she’s single, back in her childhood bedroom, on crutches from knee surgery, and relying on her mother to help her with the smallest of tasks. This isn’t how thirty-two was meant to look.

When Misty turns to dating apps, she's she’s immediately intrigued by charismatic, handsome Christopher – so intrigued that she doesn't doesn’t even notice the acronym ‘ENM’ on his profile. By the time she discovers that it stands for ‘ethical non-monogamy' – and that he’s in a long-term open relationship – she already feels such undeniable, dizzying chemistry that she decides to give things a go.

And so Misty makes a pact with herself to date Christopher for the next six weeks while his partner is away. It’s all part of her plan: she wants to learn to become less attached, and to prepare herself for her next ‘real’ relationship. But is what she wants really what she needs?
  • Published: 29 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9780241632772
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304
Categories:

About the author

Roxy Dunn

Roxy's debut novel, As Young as This (published by Fig Tree, Penguin) was sold at auction and was a Best Book of 2024 in The Independent, Harper’s Bazaar, Stylist, Cosmopolitan, and Sunday Times Style. She is also a screenwriter and alumna of the BBC Comedy Room. Her scripts have been optioned by several production companies and her pilot Useless Millennials was commissioned and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Wants and Needs is her second novel.

RD

Also by Roxy Dunn

As Young As This
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Praise for Wants and Needs

Desperately sad and desperately entertaining ... I just knew I was going to inhale it when I read that first page. So enjoyable and well observed and the writing is just so good and moreish. I loved it

Catherine Airey, author of Confessions

Roxy Dunn is oh so good on love. The big feelings. The thinking (and overthinking). The thrills and the spills. Wants and Needs is witty, warm and seriously sexy. A story about what we desire and deserve

Chloë Ashby, author of Wet Paint

A tender novel about the pursuit of love ... Dunn writes with a perceptive frankness

Amy Twigg, author of Spoilt Creatures

Narrated by a refreshingly offbeat heroine, Wants and Needs is a thoroughly amusing coming-of-age (in your thirties) novel written with wit, honesty and tenderness

Claire Powell, author of At The Table

A funny, deeply perceptive novel about desire, commitment, and the drastic (sometimes questionable) measures we'll take to avoid ourselves. Dunn writes with an honesty and intimacy that would be scary if the book wasn't also so much fun

Morgan Dick, author of Favourite Daughter

Thoughtful, fresh and intelligent (and so wryly funny), Roxy Dunn writes so smoothly about the limitations - and liberations - of adult love with such delicacy and honesty. This is a timely novel about things that are, conversely, timeless - self-worth, desire and the deep questions of the heart

Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night

Addictive, hilarious and moving. I was totally charmed by this sensitively-rendered and emotionally astute portrait of modern love. Roxy Dunn’s voice is so fresh, funny and human. I missed Misty the moment I closed the book

Francesca Reece, author of Voyeur