Life Skills
A combination of overwork and jet-leg propels Julia Fairfax into becoming engaged to a golf-playing wine buff called Oscar. But when she realises that she has fonder feelings for his adorable Labrador than for Oscar himself, she is forced to confront the fact that there is something drastically wrong. Ditching her fiancé and jacking in her job, she decides to revolutionise her life.
Her new career as a cook on a pair of hotel boats is certainly a departure, and teaches her more about life than how to get a couple of narrow boats through a lock. But even afloat, Julia's past catches up with her. Not only must she contend with the persistent Oscar (not to mention his frightful mother and her own mother's determined matchmaking), but also the arrival of her childhood enemy, the enigmatic Fergus Grindley...
Thyme Out
Love can grow on you, or can it? A wonderfully romantic novel from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Recipe for Love, A French Affair and The Perfect Match.
When Perdita Dylan delivers her baby vegetables to a local hotel and finds that her unpredictable ex-husband, Lucas, has taken over the kitchen, she is horrified - particularly when she discovers he's being groomed as the latest celebrity chef and needs her picturesque, if primitive cottage, and her, in supporting roles.
Her life is further complicated when Kitty, her 87-year-old friend, has a stroke. Perdita needs someone to lean on - and Lucas seems so keen to help that she starts to wonder if he's really such a villain. Can she cope with all this alone? Or should she face up to the fact that 'You can't cuddle lettuces'?