My Secret Lover

Book excerpt: Lydia knows she should be more serious. It's meant to be the end of trivia, but all she can think about when she watches the evening news is how the reporter on the front line manages to iron his shirt into such nice creases, and why Will doesn't move about a bit more when he sings. Lydia realises she should be happy. She's got her health, a job she loves, a terraced cottage, one down, two up, a nice, steady relationship, and a number of other things to be grateful for which her mother would certainly list if you were interested. It's not that Lydia covets a high-profile career like her beautiful sister Joanna, nor a house from the pages of Hello! (which, by the way, she only reads for research), but just occasionally, she finds herself thinking there ought to be a higher point in her life than winning the regional pub quiz with Gordon. And surely gratitude is not the primary emotion you should feel towards your boyfriend, even if you are quite plain? Lydia wonders who it is who creates the strange, scientific-sounding words that are the language of face cream, and whether Visage or ReVitalift would make any Visible Difference. It's what's inside that counts, her mother always says. Lydia's not even sure whether there is much inside, until one New Year's Day, she finds herself in a great outpouring of existential angst to someone on the other side of the world, (Resolution 1: Never click on Send when you're drunk), and suddenly, her quite ordinary life begins to turn extraordinary. The question is: A) Can you fall in love with someone you've never met? B) Can you only fall in love with someone you've never met? C) Who is he anyway? Teachers are supposed to know the answers, but Lydia doesn't have a clue.