Sweet Entanglement

After many hiccups during the Covid pandemic, my new romance novel is ready for release on April 30th.

Sweet Entanglement is the second book of the series and follows the lives of the protagonists who first appeared in Sweeter Than Wine (2018).

What happens when there are four in a relationship?

With only occasional weekends and holidays together, Nicole Durand and Andy Ravel are feeling the strain of their long-distance romance.

But when Andy is offered a job at MIT, Nicole faces an impossible decision. Should she go to America with the man she loves, or spend the next few years in celibate spinsterhood? Half-way through her degree course in Edinburgh, she has made friends and enjoys a small income tutoring French.

Andy also faces a dilemma. On his way home for Christmas, he has met vivacious ex-girlfriend, Margie Chapman. Margie works in New York and has a two-year-old son, Tommy. Though he loves Nicole, Andy has feelings for Margie too, which are not only reciprocated but complicated by a suspicion that Tommy might be his.

For Nicole, abandoning her course for a financially insecure life in the USA would be rash, the alternative equally so, when her sensuous nature might throw her into the arms of attractive medic, Mike Prentice. Separated by three thousand miles of ocean, Nicole and Andy must each tread a path through this entanglement of love, friendship and career, without hurting the people they care about.

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Starting today and during this week, I will be posting some taster/teaser passages from the novel, to give readers a flavour of the story. I hope you will enjoy!

‘What about Tommy’s . . .’ I’m about to say father but the word freezes on my tongue. Why hasn’t Margie mentioned him, and why am I jealous. We have both moved on, me with Nicole, she with whomever. There is nothing between us except perhaps forgiveness and a renewed friendship. Yet something she said makes me go back to the arithmetic. December to December is twelve months.…

‘Man!‘ Tommy exclaims again, pointing at me with a chubby fist. The interruption saves me embarrassment.

‘This is Dr Ravel, Tommy darling,’ Margie says. ‘He’s a friend. You know what friends are, don’t you?’

And another few months before that . . .

I stare at the child. He stares back and makes another face. It’s all your fault, he seems to be saying.

‘Look, Ravel,’ Margie says. ‘Let’s get out of here. I’ll shout you a coffee – give us time to catch up.

I can’t look at her. I keep staring at Tommy, my brain working overtime on the maths. Not fifteen but eighteen months old?

If my calculations are worth anything, eighteen plus nine makes twenty-seven months – two years ago last September. If I’m right, Christmas – maybe my whole life – is about to get a lot more complicated.

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