The Plus One
My first book, starring Polly Spencer, a journalist who works for a posh magazine (a tiny bit like Tatler, where I used to work) and is one day sent up to Yorkshire to interview the playboy son of a duke.
What Happens Now?
My heroine, Lil, is a 31-year-old who goes on a first date with an extremely handsome man she’s met on an app. She only realises he’s a famous explorer when she subsequently sees him on breakfast telly. Cut to a few weeks later and Lil discovers she’s pregnant, but the famous explorer is halfway up an unconquered mountain in Pakistan. And then it’s announced that he’s missing. Uh oh…
The Wish List
The one about poor old Florence, my 32-year-old heroine who’s never had a boyfriend, so is packed off to see a ‘love coach’ by her bossy step-mother at the beginning of the novel. Gwendolyn the Harley Street love coach (think a frumpy Dawn French) duly makes Florence write a ‘love list’ of all the things she’s looking for in a partner and, because she doesn’t believe it for a second, Florence comes up with a joke list which includes things like ‘likes cats, no pointy shoes, reads books, no skid marks, and isn’t obsessed with social media.’ A few days later, a charming man comes into the bookshop where Florence works, engages her in conversation, and then asks her out. Huh? Could the love coach have helped after all…?
Looking Out For Love
Stella, my spoiled heroine, is cut off from her father’s credit card at the start of the novel and ends up working for a private detective who specialises in affairs. I loved the research for this because I got to hang out with two former coppers turned private detectives who live in Essex, and keep all sorts of disguises and wigs in their cars to bust cheating partners. There’s also an excellent retired police dog called Basil in this one.
Did You Miss Me?
The one I wrote having been inspired by The Split, the excellent BBC series about divorce lawyers. Nell, a divorce lawyer, suddenly has to hurry home to Northumberland when a friend of her parents’ dies. At the funeral, she sees her first love for the first time in 15 years. Can you ever go back to a relationship, or should the past stay in the past?
The Right Place
This one is mostly set in the South of France (which meant I had to go and live in Provence for a spell for research, naturellement). Maggie is struggling to have a baby with her boring husband in London, then suddenly learns that her estranged aunt has died and left her a hotel in the French hills, an hour outside Nice. Off Maggie goes, only to discover to her great sadness that the hotel – formerly very glamorous – is now dilapidated and unloved. And then a mystery guest checks in. Hang on, surely he can’t be the disgraced Hollywood actor, suddenly in the news and looking for a place to hide out? Life suddenly feels rosier for Maggie, but is she developing a silly crush in the lavender bushes, or is she finally in the right place?
