Do you remember your first love?  Or the one that got away? 

Actually I remember a couple.  I guess I’d call them ‘potentials’ – in my case not very likely potentials, either.  But I can still get pretty good daydreams out of either of them – or plot lines, come to that.

It’s the story line from my new UK release, Hired by her Husband.  Sophy McKinnon, who you may remember meeting briefly in One-Night Mistress…Convenient Wife as Natalie’s cousin and business partner, has a husband she thinks is an ex.  He isn’t.  And he doesn’t want to be.  And when George Savas gets a chance to make things right the second time around, he doesn’t pull out any stops.

It was great fun to write. Getting things right the second time around is a wonderfully satisfying experience.  I’ve just read two other books celebrating the same experience.

Both Jill Mansell and Trisha Ashley write wonderful, warm, funny books.  I usually grab them as soon as they come out (which thanks to BookDepository.co.uk is prompt and postage free these days).  And then, of course, sometimes they languish on my TBR pile because I don’t get time to read them.

But they both went to California with me. So I had two terrific companions on my journey.

Trisha’s Chocolate Wishes is a confection of a book. Set in the same fictional rural English Trisha-Ashley-world as A Winter’s Tale and Wedding Tiers, it is the story of Chloe Lyon, who makes chocolate angels with a wish tucked inside each one.  What a great job!  If someone isn’t doing it for real, someone ought to be.

Chloe has a somewhat unorthodox family, including a patriarch – her grandfather, Gregory Warlock, who writes novels of sorcery, espouses paganism, has a coven and generally makes sure that life is rarely boring, an elderly cousin Zillah who reads Tarot cards and can be counted on for reasonably good advice, and eighteen year old Jake, Chloe’s half-brother who has goth tendencies, a wardrobe largely given over to black, and a surprisingly cheerful outlook on life in spite of it all. 

What she doesn’t have is the man who got away – or went away — Raffy Sinclair, rock singer and basic jerk who couldn’t be counted on when she most needed to count on him.

Fine. So, no Raffy.  All well and good, she thinks. He was a louse. She should never have got mixed up with him in the first place. But she was young and foolish then.  Now – years and years later – she knows better.

Or she does until Sticklepond gets a new vicar – and he turns out to be the bane of Chloe’s former life. 

Raffy as a vicar takes some getting used to.  Chloe has a lot to think about – and a lot to forgive. Raffy has some sorting out to do, too.  They need to clear up misconceptions and they need to be honest with each other. There’s also the little matter of the vicar and the warlock. Er, can you say: family could be an issue?  Well, family also can surprise you. 

I spent a number of happy evenings with Raffy and Chloe and the other inhabitants of Sticklepond, watching and silently cheering the vicar on. 

I love it when people who are right for each other finally get together.

Same is true in Jill Mansell’s Take a Chance on Me.  Cleo (not to be confused with Trisha’s Chloe, which she was in my head for a day or so. Mea culpa) has had a ‘thing’ for Johnny LaVenture since they were kids. 

Sparks always seemed to fly between them. And once, back then, she thought he might actually like her, too.  But what really happened that day still mortifies her years and years later. 

Cleo has stayed in the village and works as a chauffeur (well, a chauffeuse, if you want to be gender-specific, I guess).  Johnny has gone on to international fame as a metal sculptor.   When he returns for the funeral of his father, the sparks are still there.

So is Cleo’s mortification.  Johnny may have grown up a bit, but he’s still a guy — and when has a guy ever been straightforward about how he feels?  Especially if he’s already got something to feel guilty about. 

The road to true love is not smooth. But it is fun. And because this is a Jill Mansell book, you get a whole village for the price of Cleo and Johnny. 

Before Johnny can convince Cleo to take a chance on him, you get to spend time with Cleo’s sister Abbie, who is having her own crisis with husband Tom; you get Cleo’s friend and neighbor, Ash, a local DJ who can talk for England, except to the one girl who matters.

You get Georgia, who would like to get Ash and who still has a lot of growing up to do; you get Fia, whose husband, Will, Cleo accidentally had an affair with (don’t ask; Jill will tell you); and Patty who kept a secret and broke a promise; and a lot of other locals who will keep you smiling as you read. 

I so enjoyed all the time I spent in both Trisha’s and Jill’s worlds.  And I love getting those men with pasts sorted out.  Don’t you?

Read any good books lately?  Tell me about them.