Jane has everything under control. Though her ex-husband has moved an hour away, totally disrupting her daughters' routines, and her mother has died, her publisher has dropped her and her literary agent no longer wants to represent her. She's even organised enough to be able to stand in for an ill friend and teach a residential writing course at a day's notice.

But the last student to arrive, in a flurry of drama and noise, is the person who will bring everything crashing down: Lucy, the woman who Jane's husband left her for, his second wife. How can the two possibly spend a week together?

But this course could mean a serious boost to the writing career of one of them. How can they not?



Nicola Gill lives in London. At the age of five, when all of the other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, she decided she wanted to be an author. Her ballet teacher was very relieved. When she's not at her desk, you can usually find Nicola reading, cooking up vast vats of food for friends and family or watching box sets. Occasionally she even leaves the house…