Sunday Reilly and why she’s all out of f*cks to give this New Year’s Eve
From Sunday Reilly’s journal:
2025: The Movie. ⭐️✩✩✩✩
Would not recommend.
That’s the polite way to describe the clusterfuck in a flaming dumpster fire on a slow-moving train wreck that was 2025. Thank Christ Queen Lizzie wasn’t around to see 2025. Because this annus has redefined horribilis. Bring on the new year, I say. 2026 won’t have to do much to surpass its predecessor, because the bar has been set very, very low.
My phone pings.
Sunday? Where RU? Pick up your fn phone!
I wonder how many of Mimi’s texts I can ignore before she just turns up on the doorstep.
Why can’t she leave me alone? Stupid question. “No” is not in my best friend’s vocabulary.
It’s not that I don’t like a party as much as the next woman of a certain age.
Who am I kidding? I’ve officially arrived at that point in life when the thought of an evening on the couch with a dozen oysters, half a crayfish, a bowl of chocolate mousse, and a bottle of French bubbles all to myself sounds like the perfect way to ring in the new year.
The champagne’s already on ice. It’s been in the fridge for a bit now. It’s been there waiting for that day… you know the one. We’re all waiting on the same thing. Why are those cankles taking so goddamned long to do their work? I’ve got wrinkled carrots in the veggie drawer with more life in them, and it looks like they’ll be seeing the inside of a compost bin before the man who would be king.
No, he is not dead yet. So, I may as well crack the champers tonight and toast the year that was. Actually, it’s less toasting the year, than it is flipping 2025 the bird, kicking it down the stairs, and slamming the door shut after it.
Ping! There’s the phone again. It’s Mimi. Because, of course it is.
Hellooooooo???!!! STOP IGNORING ME!!!
I’m ignoring her with good reason. Mimi got me an invitation to what is touted as the most champagne-drenched, caviar-and-blini-fed, Manalo Blahnik shoed, cocaine-fuelled, international DJ-musicked (is that even a word?) social event of the season. It’s on a rooftop in the city, overlooking the fireworks at midnight, and EVERYBODY is going to be there, Mimi said.
Everybody but me, if I have my way. Because all I want to do is stay at home. Is that awful?
Footsteps in the hall, and it’s my perfectly perfect daughter, Ruby.
She wraps her arms around me, which is exactly what I need. Ruby banishes all ills.
Hey mum, she says. Any plans for tonight?
Mimi wants me to go with her to some party in the city, I say.
Ooooo! Fun! she says, need help picking an outfit?
Nah, I’ll be ok, I say.
What I don’t tell darling Ruby is that the only outfit I’m planning to wear tonight is the lemon-yellow linen pyjama set I picked up in the Boxing Day sales.
I’m heading out soon, she says, we’re all getting together at Tessa’s, sort of a pool party vibe.
Sounds great, I say.
And it does.
If I was nineteen all over again.
Ping! Mimi again.
I’ll be at yrs at 7. Won’t take no for an answer.
Only that sets off a fabulously awful plummeting-stomach sensation because I’d rather shit in my own hands and clap than go to a huge party full of strangers. And that’s only a slight exaggeration. But if there’s one thing I know about Mimi, it’s that she means what she says.
I might have to feign illness. Food poisoning? Ate a dodgy prawn? That’d do it.
The back door opens. It’s my son, Harry. He’s been marinating himself in the hot tub he installed in the backyard while I was away in Greece last year. It makes my garden look like a shonky set for a `70s porn movie. Either that, or a low-rent Scandinavian campground. I hate it. But I haven’t got round to doing anything about it. And Harry enjoys it, so there is that. He seems to have no issue soaking in tepid liquid that’s probably half urine and other body fluids.
Hey mum, he says. I told some mates you’d be cool about them coming over to hang before we go to the beach to watch the fireworks and stuff, maybe jump in the hot tub. That OK?
There goes any thought I might have been having about a quiet night in.
No, it’s absolutely not OK, is what I don’t say, even though I probably should.
Instead, I say, sure thing, Mimi wants me to go to the big Clemenger party.
You should totally do that, Harry says.
Looks like I have no choice. So, I’ve done what I always do… left the decision until the death knell.
As the minute hand clicks towards the hour and I know Mimi will be here on the dot because she always is, I tear every item of clothing I own out of my wardrobe in a blind panic.
Everything is too tight/too filthy/too wrinkly/too short/too tizzy/too casual/too old/too pink/too sparkly/too shabby/too much/too little.
On top of the pile is the hand-me-down vintage Pucci A-line dress gifted to me by my mother after a wardrobe cleanout because she lost so much weight from ballroom dancing, she said, and you’ve packed a bit on, haven’t you? don’t know if any of this will fit you when I look at your tummy, but here, maybe this one, I bought it when I blew out after giving birth to you, she said, might be room somewhere in there for you.
Given half the chance, my mother, Robyn, always digs the boots in. It’s in her job description to crush anyone with a vagina and a pulse as potential competition, including her daughter.
But she was right. There was room for me in there. And I got some use out of it in Greece.
If you’ve heard my story, and a few of you have by now, you’ll know that dress has seen some things.
There are some stains dry cleaning will never get out.
But just as it was the right dress for a Greek shipping magnate’s party on Ouranos, it’s also the right dress for a New Year’s Eve party on a rooftop surrounded by the one-percenters. Or our homegrown version, anyway. They’re more like the thirty-three percenters. Pro-rata percenters.
I pull the dress over my head and check the view in the mirror, and then the panic kicks in all over again, because how in the name of self-delusion did I think this actually suited me?… doesn’t it actually look like a kaleidoscopic circus tent, with me as the fuzzy-haired clown in the big-top? And how in the name of all that is holy am I going to get myself presentable in… what time is it now?… forty minutes? Forget the silk purse, this sow’s ear is going to be pushed to have time to shave the stubble off her uncooperatively bristly top lip… and what shoes can I wear? I’ll have to go close-toed because my toenails may as well be on loan from Dumbo… my fingernails are even worse, if that’s possible, they’re raptor talons… where’s my fucking nail file?… on the bedside table…?
That’s when I see it.
Because through the hazy fog of panic, my eyes fall on a framed photo.
It’s a photo of me. Teeth blindingly white against nut-brown skin, hair blowing every which way, as I lean back against the strong chest of a man with eyes so blue it looks like someone has punched two holes through his skull to let the sky in.
It’s a selfie. I hate selfies. At least, I used to hate selfies. Until last year.
There, by the Aegean, I broke into pieces. But then I stopped trying to fix myself. And somewhere along the way, I learnt to kind of like myself again.
I smile.
Everything is going to be fine.
It’s going to be better than fine.
Because I remember who I am again.
Bring on the New Year. It’s going to be a good one.
x Sunday Reilly
Editor’s note:
You’ve just met Sunday Riley. She has been many things. An author. A mother. A wife. A daughter. A friend. A lover. But last year, that all changed.
SUNDAY RILEY IS ALL OUT OF F*CKS TO GIVE is Sunday’s story as she upends her life and takes off for the Greek islands on a whim in search of adventure and romance. She figures her life is halfway done anyway, so what has she got to lose?
Nothing goes to plan, which for Sunday has become par for the course. What was meant to be a retreat to work on her new novel becomes something else altogether as she pursues creative and romantic inspiration in one of the most beautiful corners of the planet.
As she barely makes it through a string of riotously funny near disasters, Sunday picks up the pieces and learns to embrace a new kind of freedom. A journey that was meant to be a distraction from truths she would rather forget becomes an opportunity for transformation as she embarks on a new phase of life.
SUNDAY RILEY IS ALL OUT OF FUCKS TO GIVE is funny, outrageous, angry, and heartbreaking, because life for women of a certain age is all those things. It is an uplifting and tender coming-of-age story for the middle-agers about the search for a new chapter in life full of love, meaning, and purpose after all those things have been stripped away.
If this voice hooked you, stay close. You’re already inside Sunday’s world. And she’s arriving on 20 January.
Praise for SUNDAY RILEY IS ALL OUT OF F*CKS TO GIVE:
“This book had me laughing from the opening sentence. Loved it !” Goodreads
“Filled with laughs from the opening page, tears and plenty of WTF moments, this is a fun summer read that is tempered with poignant moment.” Goodreads
“Sunday Riley is eminently relatable.” Goodreads
“Funniest book of 2025. 5 stars for sure!”
“Meaghan’s writing style is at a fast clip, with an awesome FMC who has life fighting against her. It’s wickedly funny and had me laughing out loud.”
“Loved the book – laughed out loud and felt I’d escaped to Greece too!”
“Has you doing pelvic floors and weeping with laughter!”
