Writing & Ideas

Beyond Happily Ever After:

How to design relationships that stay alive over time

Beyond Happily Ever After is a forthcoming hybrid nonfiction book for people whose relationships are already good — loving, functional, and full of promise.

It begins with an uncomfortable truth most couples don’t like to hear: when things are going well is exactly when no one thinks they need a relationship book. Nothing is broken. There’s no crisis. No urgency. And so the real work — the small, intentional choices that keep a relationship alive over time — is quietly postponed.

The book blends a forward-moving memoir with practical, experience-tested ways of thinking about commitment, communication, and shared decision-making. It’s written for people who want to protect what they have, not repair what’s failed — and who are curious about how good relationships are actively maintained rather than passively hoped for.

Grounded in lived situations rather than theory, the ideas come from decades of work in communication, creativity, mental health, and relationship-centred training, alongside close observation of how people behave when time, habit, and comfort set the rules.

Because great relationships don’t disappear overnight.
They fade slowly — unless someone decides to design for what they want to keep.

→ Beyond the Book – See more to come

One Hand Clapping

Published Viking Penguin (UK)

Lise Leroux’s first novel was published by Viking Penguin UK and received significant critical attention, including reviews in The Times and the Times Literary Supplement. The book was translated into Dutch and published internationally by Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, establishing her early career within the UK literary landscape.

The novel carried a cover endorsement from Diane Johnson (Le Divorce) and was nominated by Viking Penguin UK for an international literary award (Orange Prize). It has since been used as required reading in university-level English literature courses.

Known for its dark humour and idiosyncratic voice, the book established Leroux’s long-standing interest in human behaviour, power, intimacy, and the subtle dynamics that shape relationships long before outcomes are obvious.

Following publication, Leroux was invited into a range of literary and educational contexts, including nomination as a Writer-in-Residence within the UK prison system, where she mentored both staff and inmates. She also worked as a writing mentor with PEN, participated in literary festivals and panel discussions, and appeared in media conversations around writing, culture, and science-adjacent themes.

Involved, exuberant … written with self-confidence and imaginative force.

THE TIMES

Stage, Radio & Performance

Alongside print fiction, Lise Leroux has written extensively for live and broadcast contexts, including stage monologues, radio work, immersive theatre, and performance-based storytelling. Her work in these forms is voice-driven, darkly observant, and often explores the gap between what people say publicly and what they are thinking privately.

Several pieces have been performed at festivals and live events, with selected work receiving recognition for originality and voice. Writing for performance sharpened Leroux’s attention to rhythm, compression, and audience response — an awareness of how meaning shifts when words are spoken aloud rather than read in isolation.

During this period, Leroux began deliberately combining forms — blending narrative, monologue, observation, and structural constraint — to produce unexpected effects. Long before “cross-genre” became a label, she experimented with layering formats and voices, treating form itself as a kind of creative architecture. This approach continues to inform both her nonfiction work and the design-based thinking at the core of Beyond Happily Ever After.

Fall Back Up

(Memoir-adjacent monologue; live festival performance)
Produced by Doug Kirby

Monologue performances

  • Are We There Yet? (monologue) – Swindon Fringe Festival (UK)
    Performed by Amy Blunden
  • Learning to Fly (monologue) – Swindon Fringe Festival (UK)
    Performed by Georgie Crespie
  • Girl Most Likely To (monologue) – Swindon Fringe Festival (UK)
    Performed by Emily Louise Baker

Radio Drama

  • Fear of Flying (radio drama) – Broadcast BBC Luxembourg

Immersive Theatre

  • Don’t Blame the Apricots (full length play) – London, UK
  • Risky Behaviour (10 minute short play) – London, UK
  • Personal Development (10 minute short play) – Swindon, UK

Selected Publications and Essays

Leroux’s work has also appeared in interdisciplinary collections used in university, community, or health settings, reflecting an interest in writing that crosses boundaries — between narrative and analysis, seriousness and wit, and personal experience and shared insight.

Podcast & audio:

  • The Nine Lives of Lise Leroux
    Podcast conversation on memoir, mortality, and meaning for The Graveyard Group – exploring lived experience, humour, and survival.)

Collaborations: