About the Breakup Doctor Series
I married my excellent husband relatively late, after a long search that yielded me a long and colorful dating life. In those dating years, it was my girlfriends who kept me sane, who provided perspective, who built up my courage and confidence and self-image whenever they started to flag as I—like many women—experienced nearly every relationship pitfall there is.
In 2005 I read Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo’s He’s Just Not That Into You—and it quite literally changed my life. The prototype of pretty much every guy I and my girlfriends had ever dated was in there—the one who never actually asks you out; the one who’d rather drink (or get high) when he’s with you; the one who cheats; the one who comes on strong, then disappears. The “This Is What It Should Look Like” sections opened up a new idea to me—the things my friends and I were accepting as part of normal relating between men and women didn’t have to be part of our equation if we didn’t want them to be. There were good men out there; it did look different when a guy was really into you—I mean really into you—and we deserved to have it.
My dating life changed almost overnight—I didn’t even bother anymore with anything less than someone who seemed to really like me, to want to get to know me, to give me his full attention when we were together, and not play games or hide behind “fear of commitment” or “having been burned.” In 2007 I met the man who is now my husband, and it really is as simple as Greg and Liz said—if a guy is into you, you know it. He shows you, all the time. Now that I am in a healthy and happy relationship, it’s kind of stunning to me that I and almost every woman I know, of every age, go through a period when we don’t realize this simple fact, and we explain away behavior on a man’s part that’s negligent at best, appalling at worst, with ridiculous excuses like “he’s just afraid” or “he’s been burned before.”
I still pass along He’s Just Not That Into You to every woman I know who’s dating, from my teenage niece to my mom when she went back into the dating pool, because we all deserve to know our worth and there’s no need to accept anything less than a guy who is really, really into us. That’s what the Breakup Doctor series grew out of. I wanted to share with every woman everywhere all the wisdom and kindness and common sense in that book, and I wanted to write stories. Most important, I hope that the series is as fun to read as it was for me to write. But it’s also my dear hope that women might read the books and see themselves, and begin to believe that there really is better out there than what they might have found, and that they deserve it one hundred percent.
I’m not usually much on book dedications, but I dedicate these wholeheartedly to Liz Tuccillo and Greg Behrendt, the loving, protective older siblings that every woman should have. I dedicate them to my husband, who was so, so worth waiting—and wading—through every other relationship to find. And I dedicate it to women. Because you are beautiful, and strong, and smart, and worthy. And if you’re not quite ready to believe that yet, then until you are, along with Brook, I will believe it for you.
Find Books by Phoebe Fox:
BOOK ONE: THE BREAKUP DOCTOR (released June 2014)
Out-of-work therapist Brook Ogden has found her calling as the Breakup Doctor: giving her always-on-the-ball relationship advice to help clients shape up after a break up.
But when her own boyfriend dumps her – by text message – she finds herself spectacularly breaking every one of her own rules.
As her increasingly out-of-control behavior lands her at rock-bottom, Brook realizes you can’t always handle a messy breakup neatly – and that sometimes you can’t pull yourself together until you let yourself fall apart.
BOOK TWO: BEDSIDE MANNERS (released March 2015)
Brook Ogden has never encountered a broken heart she couldn’t patch together. Her counseling practice as the Breakup Doctor—on call to help you shape up after a breakup—is so busy she’s expanded to offer group sessions. (Turns out there are far more than fifty ways to leave your lover.) Her radio show and advice column have made her a local celebrity, and even her personal life, after some gruesome breakups of her own, is in recovery: Ben Garrett started out as a revenge date against an ex, but has turned into so much more.
But when sizzling-hot Chip Santana, an old client she once shared a rather unprofessional midnight roll in the sand with, comes back into her life asking for her help, Brook can’t say no. Yet while she’s busy stitching up his relationship troubles, Chip reveals much more than a therapeutic interest in her.
In the standoff between her heart and her hormones, Brook’s cool, collected Wise Therapist persona begins to crack like thrown wedding china. She’s yelling at recalcitrant cheating husbands. Offering crazy advice to radio callers. She’s even hugging her clients.
When the situation goes critical, Brook’s forced into a decision she isn’t ready to make—and the Breakup Doctor has to decide what kind of casualties she’s willing to accept.
BOOK THREE: HEART CONDITIONS (releases Feb. 2016)
Running a massively successful relationship counseling practice should guarantee smooth sailing in a girl’s own love life...
Breakup Doctor Brook Ogden has spent the last year sifting through the fallout from the disastrous decision that led to her unconscious uncoupling with boyfriend Ben Garrett. Despite advising her clients you can’t be friends with an ex, she and Ben have somehow begun to stitch together a friendship—one Brook hopes is slowly turning into more. That is, until Ben introduces his new girlfriend, Perfect Pamela, a paragon of womanly virtues who is everything Brook is not.
While Brook navigates her newly volatile emotional life, an unwelcome surprise shows up on her doorstep: the ex-fiancé who broke her heart two years ago—one month before their wedding. Between her ex’s desire to rekindle their attachment, her best friend Sasha’s unexpected crisis, and her own unsquelchable feelings for Ben, Brook finds herself questioning the personal progress she’s made in the last two years—and threatened with the highest-stakes Breakup Doctor failures she’s ever faced.
Phoebe Fox is the author of the Breakup Doctor series, and has been a contributor and regular columnist for a number of national, regional, and local publications (she currently writes about relationships for the Huffington Post and She Knows). She has been a movie, theater, and book reviewer; a screenwriter; and has even been known to help with homework revisions for nieces and nephews. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two excellent dogs.
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