Page 42 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“Welded to a swarm of snotty children clamoring for more?”

“Yeah, maybe not that bit,” he admitted.

Flo settled Ross in the corner of the children’s section with an adult-sized chair and a fresh cup of tea and—within minutes—he was off.

Who knew that a handsome man like Ross could appear even more attractive when he was putting on a bossy granny voice, thought Petra, finding herself gazing at him between customers, something that she spotted Flo noticing too. She would be interrogated later, that was for sure.

“So . . .” said Flo heavily, in a brief moment when Ross had left and they were in between flurries of customers. “Ross, eh?”

“Hmm?” Petra replied, noncommittal, but she was fooling no one.

“I, for one, feel much better knowing you have a nice young man looking out for you,” said Flo complacently.

“Don’t need a man looking out for me,” muttered Petra gracelessly.

“Didn’t say you did,” Flo retorted. “But life is much nicer with, than without. I would miss Graham if he wasn’t there . . . and you would never have caught me saying that just a year ago,” she added, sounding astonished herself at the revelation.

Chapter Sixteen

Perhaps it was never too late for love, Petra thought, back in the flat that evening as she sat in front of the fire. She was still two years short of thirty herself. There was loads of time. Although—that said—she hadn’t dated for years: being a struggling student, then working various low-paid editing jobs, and then as a rookie literary agent, frantically working and networking in the evenings and weekends. Life hadn’t seemed to allow the time or the energy for romance. She hadn’t even had time to maintain her old friendships.

No wonder she had been so lonely.

It was hard to be lonely in a busy bookshop, she found. Another lovely thing was how, when the shop was closed at five o’clock, Petra really did feel the work was done for the day. Life was so much more pleasant even in the little ways, she thought contentedly, sipping her tea and opening her latest book with pleasurable anticipation.

On Thursday, Petra—locking up the shop after another good sales day—was looking forward to the evening. It was to be the first time that Capelthorne’s hosted the local writing group.

Alison, the leader of “Write Club” (first rule of Write Club is you do not talk about Write Club) was the only member Petra had already met. Clearing a space and pulling the chairs into a circle, she suddenly found herself suffering a fit of nervous excitement at the thought of being with actual writers for the first time in ages. Hearing a knock at the door, Petra was relieved to see Alison was the first to arrive.

“This is so kind of you,” said Alison, looking around the shop nervously, as if expecting someone to be lurking in the shadows, ready to leap out and tell her Capelthorne’s wouldn’t be hosting the group after all.

Mind you, thought Petra, she hadn’t double-checked with Jules that it was all right. She had been loath to interrupt the honeymoon, but Flo was enthusiastic when Petra mentioned it to her as a fait accompli a few days ago.

“Mrs. Hamilton at the library was so relieved when I told her we had managed to find another venue,” Alison told Petra, bobbing her head in gratitude.

Alison was a thin, nervous woman in her sixties, given to wearing anoraks and bobble hats. She reminded Petra of the little mouse seamstress in Beatrix Potter’s Tailor of Gloucester with her earnest head-forward posture and habit of wringing her hands.

“You are all very welcome,” Petra reassured her. “It was such a shame the library couldn’t continue,” she went on, “but I know how difficult funding is these days. Here, look, we have some biscuits,” she went on, getting out the tin with the chocolate biscuits left over from the most recent Beach Reads Book Club, “and all the tea- and coffeemaking bits are in the kitchen here, so do just help yourselves.”

“Thank you, we will,” said Alison anxiously, “but—I confess—we were also hoping you would stay and give us your thoughts? When I told the crew you were from publishing in London,” she practically put “publishing” in quote marks, such was the majesty she conferred to the word, “we were hoping you would join in?” She screwed up her face as if feeling the request was very significantly too much to ask.

“Of course! I’d love to,” exclaimed Petra, who was secretly hoping she would be asked but hadn’t wanted to volunteer herself.

They were an eclectic bunch, Petra decided, looking around the little circle when they had all convened and were settled with mugs and chocolate biscuits in hand. They had clearly exchanged material by email in advance and were already leaning in solicitously, heaping each other’s work with praise as they chatted quietly among themselves.

They all nodded and smiled as Alison made introductions, which gave Petra a chance to apologize for not having read anything beforehand. At hearing this, they all diffidently handed over sheafs of printouts showing the work they were going to discuss that evening. Petra promised that Alison would provide them all with her email address so she could study up in advance of the next session, prompting an outburst of gratitude from them all.

The range of writing projects and styles was huge, Petra discovered.

Simon was a bear of a man who reminded Petra of Hagrid from Harry Potter. He wore a thick Arran sweater that smelled faintly of sheep and had the facial hair of a grizzled old sea dog. Simon was writing his memoirs of a life spent crisscrossing the world’s oceans on his single-handed yacht.

“I adored your descriptions of the Balearics,” said Sylvia diffidently. “I thought the use of metaphor was inspired.”

“Melvillesque,” breathed Alison, who had submitted the newest chapter of her romance novel.

“I wondered if I had gone a bit too far on the old descriptions,” admitted Simon modestly, but they all rushed to politely disagree.

Sylvia, another member of the group, was a poet, Petra discovered, and she had written some genuinely fine verse, judging by the one set in the churchyard on the top of the hill, which they were all reading that evening. Her description of imagining wedding and funeral parties convening at the lych-gate for several hundreds of years made the hair stand up on the back of Petra’s neck, and she said so, while also admitting she had never worked on poetry in a professional capacity. “There are so few opportunities to work with poetry in today’s publishing scene,” she said apologetically.