Page 24 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“True,” said Flo, uncapping her pen ready to write. “We’ll go with Frenchman’s Creek.”

“Plus, it’s got an actual pirate king in it,” said Petra happily. She didn’t know if it was just her own personal interest or whether she was intuiting the next big thing, but she adored a pirate.

“It’s got a sad ending though,” piped up Alison, the leader of the group.

“Happy sad,” Diana told her. “Happy because she feels empowered as a woman, looking after her children first and foremost, and seeing her pirate king sometimes.”

“Exactly,” Petra chipped in. “It was the only good ending she could have gone with, I’ve always thought. Bittersweet.”

“Are we allowed sad endings, though?”

“Of course! Sad endings are sometimes the right ending, don’t you think?” asked Petra diffidently. Diana had told her Alison was a romance writer, so she would normally bow to Alison’s expertise, “But we can do a ‘Happily Ever After’ list? Totally.”

“Let’s just see what comes up,” suggested Alison.

“The Thornbirds!” suggested Jess next, putting her hand up first, because she worked a lot in schools.

“That’s another one for a sad ending,” said Mungo as Flo wrote it down.

“Twilight,” suggested someone else, to general sounds of approval.

“Fun fact: E. L. James’s Fifty Shades started off as fanfic for Twilight,” said Jess.

“What on earth is fanfic?” asked Flo, her marker pen hovering over the flip chart.

“Fan fiction—online writing, shared for free,” Petra told her. “Very often it’s homage—existing characters created by someone else—but with new adventures. Apparently, there are huge amounts of fanfic for Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes too.”

“I didn’t know that,” chipped in Diana wonderingly. “I must investigate. I always wished Conan Doyle had written more Sherlock Holmes stories.”

“Okay, so just to be aware,” Petra said hastily, “a lot of it’s quite steamy, with Holmes and Watson in a relationship.”

“That won’t faze me,” said Diana. “I’d always assumed Conan Doyle meant us to infer that anyhow.”

Mungo nodded. “The filthier the better, for this one,” he remarked.

“Absolutely,” Diana agreed. “Speaking of which, I thought Fifty Shades of Grey was great, but people love to have a pop at it, I know.”

“You can’t argue with sales of more than one hundred and fifty million. I doubt E. L. James weeps bitter tears over her detractors,” Petra agreed.

“If she does, at least she can wipe her eyes with her very nice royalty statements,” concurred Mungo. “I think Fifty Shades should be on our list as well.”

“Okay,” said Petra, making a mental note not to order too many paperback copies even so. Not everyone would want to signal publicly what they were reading, hence the benefits of e-readers.

“And if we’re talking delicious literary comfort food,” said Flo, “I think the late, great Jilly Cooper deserves a slot on the list.”

“Definitely,” said Petra. “I just absolutely adored Riders.”

“Which one was that?” asked Alison. “I still re-read the ones with the girls’ names; they’re my idea of perfect little romances. She’s my biggest writing inspiration, actually.”

“I love the girls’ names ones too,” agreed Petra. “But the Rutshire ones are amazing.”

“Yes!” sighed Jess, her hand on her heart. “Rupert Campbell-Black versus Jake Wotsisname. Heaven.”

“We should have that and the latest,” said Mungo, “and Riders deserves a place on the list, for sure, because they’ve just made a TV series of it, haven’t they? That’s got to boost sales of the book.”

Petra nodded her agreement. She barely watched television these days, as she only had her laptop and the flat’s wonky internet connection.

Flo wrote down Riders, and then—“the latest, whatever it’s called,” and then looked around the group for the next suggestion.