Page 33 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“A fire that destroyed the bookshop opposite. Look, you can see. It’s all been repaired now, of course. Where the pharmacy is now.”

Petra looked. It was true, there was no sign anything had ever happened. “Two bookshops right opposite each other, though,” she said. “That can’t have been great. It wasn’t you that burned it down, I hope?” Petra teased Flo. She was only half joking. Flo looked like one of those women who would go to any lengths if circumstances demanded it.

“It never occurred to me.” Flo laughed. “It probably should have! My point being, you never know where you are going to find ‘the one.’”

Funny how the conversation arrived back at the one topic she would rather avoid, thought Petra ruefully. “I haven’t had time for romance,” she admitted. “Work’s been . . . intense. Plus, publishing actually is quite a woman-dominated industry, so there’s not much talent around for people like me.”

“Good news that you’re in Portneath now then,” declared Flo. “I will have to see what I can do. I’ll ask around,” she added, as if Petra might be in need of a secondhand bookcase rather than a life partner.

“Oh God, please don’t,” muttered Petra. She needed that kind of complication like a hole in the head. And it would be totally inappropriate to mention Ross. Whatever it was they had, it wasn’t that. Was it?

“Talking of organizing your life for you,” admitted Flo, without the slightest hint of shame, “you’re meeting Jess on Tuesday. She wants to talk to you about the literary festival.”

“She hasn’t told me that,” replied Petra, who had been hoping—since she had raised the issue in the pub—that Jess would get back to her about it. “And I’d love to, but I have to be in the shop on Tuesday.”

“But that’s what I’m telling you,” explained Flo patiently. “You may meet her because I’m coming in to mind the shop. She wants you in Freya’s for coffee at ten o’clock.”

“Well, that’s all organized then,” said Petra, laughing. Resistance was clearly futile. And—to be fair to Flo and Jess—she was genuinely dying to find out more about Jess’s plans.

“What’s your view on literary festivals?” Petra asked Ross that evening when they were both sitting in the flat by the fireside, Petra on the blue sofa and Ross in the little armchair where he usually sat.

“I think they’re perfectly fine, providing all the participants are consenting adults who aren’t hurting anyone.”

“Idiot.”

“I did the rounds,” Ross admitted. “Back in the day . . .”

“It was only five years ago,” Petra reminded him. “You make it sound like ancient history.”

“Five years is a long time in publishing,” he said. “You know that. Anyway—yeah—I sat in drafty tents, debating the future of the literary novel—mostly whether or not it had one—with a bunch of other writers. That bit was quite fun actually. But then there’s a lot of sitting around at signing tables wondering if anyone is going to want to even buy your book, let alone ask you to sign it.”

Petra made a disbelieving noise. “Like you sat there wondering where the fans were,” she scoffed. “I bet they had to add security to hold back the crowds.”

“Yeah, okay, I was lucky,” Ross admitted. “But I knew other writers—other completely superb writers—who sat for hours, signing pen poised, watching the tumbleweeds blow by.”

Petra glanced over at him, alerted by the sudden gloom in his voice. He was staring, unseeing, into the fire, the flames illuminating his ridiculously beautiful cheekbones, but casting his eyes into shadow so she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“There are good books that don’t get the airtime they deserve,” she agreed. “But that wasn’t you, so why . . . ?”

“Was it even a good book though?” he demanded, suddenly animated, turning to face her, eyes blazing. “Who says it was a good book? Who decides? Do they even know? Who are the book police who decree which writer floats to the top of the pile and who spends years and years slaving away invisibly?

“When it’s all so arbitrary, what does success even mean?”

Petra sighed. “I totally agree with you,” she began, choosing her words carefully. “As an agent, I only represent people whose work I really believe in, but we all know good work isn’t enough. There’s luck in it as well, and—you’re right—the mavens who control the marketing budgets, they can make a book or break it—”

“Exactly,” said Ross, pointing straight at her. “Exactly. My editor. She made my book. Whether I felt it was good or bad—whether anyone else felt it was good or bad—that’s all irrelevant. My editor decided my book was going to sell well, and she made decisions accordingly.” He broke off, rubbing his face in his hands wearily.

“I’m not sure an editor’s as powerful as all that,” said Petra, feeling that he was being a tiny bit weird. Who the hell was this editor? “You wrote the book after all, not her,” she said gently.

“You say that . . .” he said, clearly not believing her for a minute, but too polite to call her out on it. “It just leaves me,” he broke off, shrugging. “It just leaves me not knowing . . . Am I a good writer, or a crap writer who got lucky? A crap writer with a pretty face?” He gazed unseeing at Petra, and then he shrugged, sighing with what sounded like despair. “Not being able to answer that question is driving me a little bit ’round the bend at the moment,” he admitted, smiling apologetically at Petra.

“This is such black-and-white thinking,” said Petra gently. “Look,” she said, engaging him, forcing eye contact, “what happens to all the other superb writers—all the writers who never get the time in the limelight they deserve? You didn’t stop them from being successful. You didn’t fraudulently take anyone else’s place. The book you wrote was objectively amazing,” she said firmly. “I read it. It changed my way of looking at the world, and my memory of it still makes me look at the world differently. How many other writers can do that?”

“Loads,” he insisted. “You’ve just never heard of them, that’s all.”

“I get that,” Petra told him softly. “But it does not detract from what you wrote. You’ve got to stop thinking that way.”

Ross sighed. He raised a smile with conspicuous effort. “Thank you, Doctor Petra,” he said. “Who’d work with writers, eh? Neurotic or what? Sorry . . .” He hung his head, apparently exhausted suddenly. “You’re literally the only one I can have this conversation with. Anyone not in that world would—quite rightly—think I’m an ungrateful brat. Nice problem to have, right?”