Life’s all about choices. Sometimes we make the right one and sometimes… sometimes we don’t. In my first novel, Thank You For The Music, my heroine Abby was faced with the choice between handsome, rich, reliable Edward and lazy, charming Rafa. In my current work, No Time Like Now, Megan is faced with an altogether difficult choice.
This time her problem is that she has to choose between Tim, the man she used to love, and Álvaro, the man she’d very much like to love. Tim was her man and, as the song goes, he done her wrong, abandoning her when she was pregnant.
Álvaro, on the other hand, is everything you might look for — kind, caring, thoughtful sensitive…oh and with the added pluses that he’s extremely handsome and all too obviously dripping with wealth.
In romantic suspense nobody is what they seems. The characters — along with the writer and the reader too — have to decide who’s good and who’s bad, who’s wrong and who’s right, who’s honest and who’s crooked.
In Megan’s case (and, it turns out, Tim’s too) the problem is not one of attraction or even love because both acknowledge that’s what’s between them, if it isn’t love, certainly used to be. The problem they have is that they both have something to forgive — though without giving away the plot twist I can’t tell you what that is.
Without wishing to get too heavy (after all, the book is essentially a romance) forgiveness is an increasing theme in my writing because it’s often a difficult thing for individuals to achieve — either in terms of offering or acceptance. And difficult things lead people to make mistakes which have far-reaching consequences.
A great part of Álvaro’s attraction for lonely (and angry) Megan is that he offers her a new start, a relationship which isn’t littered with betrayal and misunderstanding. With forgiveness so difficult (and the minor complication of Tim in a new relationship with someone she perceives as prettier and cleverer than she is) she desperately wants to move on and leave him behind.
The man who used to be the one of your dreams, or the man who might really turn out to beThe One? The man who is difficult but who you know to be rewarding, or the one who makes you life easier. Who would you choose?
Excerpt
‘No, no.’ Domenica came into the dining room the long way round rather than through the lounge so that she didn’t have to open the door. But Tim’s voice, crackling with enthusiasm, nevertheless carried clearly through to us. ‘Nothing like that. There’s someone here who’d like to speak to you.’
‘Oh?’ I looked up warily. Someone to speak to you wasn’t a phrase that usually filled me with delight. These days not many surprises were pleasant.
She ushered a young man through the door and flapped her hands at him. ‘This is Álvaro Machado. He’s from the Policia Nacional, but don’t let that worry you. He and I know each other well.’ She smiled at him and he offered a charming smile back. ‘Álvaro, this is Megan.’
Well. Look at this. Álvaro Machado, I may not know you, but wow. Surely this hormonal thunderbolt was no policeman — what else could he be but a film star in the making? Tall, dark and handsome beyond the point of cliché, his smile was wide and his teeth white, his eyes flashing and soulful and fixed on my face. If I’d wanted a romantic panacea to soothe an aching soul, I’d have struggled to invent one as tailor-made as this.
Oh, Tim would hate that. With almost undignified haste, I extended my hand and smiled. ‘Hi, Álvaro.’
‘Megan. Delighted.’ He lifted my hand and his lips brushed my fingers.
‘Sit down, Álvaro.’ Domenica fussed about him just as she did over me. ‘Beer?’
‘Never on duty.’ He kept looking at me, and raised an enquiring eyebrow. He had the look about him of a man who loved life.
‘I don’t suppose you want a beer, do you, Megan?’ In the background, Domenica continued the relentless assertion of her hospitality. ‘Coffee, maybe?’
‘No thanks.’ When at last I’d pulled myself together enough to drag my eyes from his face, I took in that he wasn’t in uniform but instead dressed impeccably in beige chinos and a blue open-necked shirt. Goodness, not just good looks but understated style to go with it. And by the look of the ensemble, there was money there, too.
Compete with that, Tim Stone.
About No Time Like Now
Hiding away from a disastrous past, Megan McLeod is getting along nicely in her job as housekeeper at a university field centre in Majorca. But the arrival of geological researcher, Tim Stone, throws everything into disarray — because Tim was the father of the baby she lost some years before and the two of them had parted very messily indeed.
As if having Tim on the scene wasn’t bad enough, he's there with his new partner, Holly. But when in the course of his research he comes upon something extremely nasty along the cliffs of north Majorca, he’s forced to turn to Megan for help.
Buy it from
Tirgearr Publishing
http://tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Young_Jennifer/no-time-like-now.htm
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Smashwords
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/487736?ref=cw1985
About Jennifer Young
Jennifer Young is an Edinburgh-based writer, editor and copywriter. She is interested in a wide range of subjects and writing media, perhaps reflecting the fact that she has both arts and science degrees. Jennifer has been writing fiction, including romantic fiction, for a number of years with several short stories already published. No Time Like Now is her second published novel; her first novel, Thank You For The Music, is also set on the Balearic island of Majorca.
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Blog
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