• Also available: 10-copy signed carton, ISBN: 9780062216113, $249.90 ($329.90 Can.)

• Successful nonfiction author: Getting the Pretty Back received tons of positive media coverage—from morning shows to a full-page story in the style section of The New York Times—and was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.

• A film icon: Molly Ringwald defined the teenage experience in the cult classic films Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles—films that continue to transfix audiences, now on television and DVD, 20 years later. 

• Loved by women of all ages: Molly’s ability to capture the awkward, painful, yet exhilarating moments of being a teenage girl have resonated with generations of women, and the stories in this collection continue that journey—with the same compelling candor—into the particular challenges, joys, and disapointments of adult relationships.

• A hit TV show: Molly stars on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a hit drama on the ABC Family network. Critically acclaimed, Secret Life has received top ratings in its time slot and its fifth season will premiere in 2012.

• A powerful and compelling literary debut that will resonate broadly with readers—from fans of Melissa Banks to Meg Wolitzer to Lorrie Moore.

When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time, but just weren’t facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be.
 
Molly Ringwald mines the complexities of modern relationships in this gripping and nuanced collection of interlinked stories. Writing with a deep compassion for human imperfection, Ringwald follows a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors while they negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life—revealing the deceptions, heartbreak, and vulnerability familiar to us all. In “The Harvest Moon,” a stay-at-home mom grapples with age, infertility and an increasingly distant husband. In “Ursa Minor,” a former children's television star tries to rebuild his life after being hospitalized for "exhaustion." An elderly woman mourns the loss of her husband and her estranged relationship with her daughter in “The Little One.” In “My Olivia,” a single mother finds untapped reserves of strength to protect her flamboyant six-year-old son who wishes only to wear dresses and be addressed as "Olivia." And in the devastating title story, a betrayed wife chronicles her pain and alienation, leading to an eviscerating denouement.
 
As the lives of these characters converge and diverge in unexpected ways, Ringwald reveals a startling eye for the universality of loss, love, and the search for connection. An unflinching yet poignant examination of the intricacies of the human heart, When It Happens to You is an auspicious literary debut.