Can casual infidelity ever be justified as the results are inevitably far-reaching and ultimately destructive, especially if all parties affected live in the same village. Diana takes us through the whole sorry business with sympathy, understanding and sadness. A very sensitive book, very moving.
Three couples, friends and neighbours… Tom, lazy and charming, looks after the children and thinks about writing a novel while his ambitious wife Sarah pursues her career as a journalist.Nat is married to the unstylish Cassie, who spends her life in jodhpurs, but although an ill-matched couple they have a strong and enduring marriage. Laure, the beautiful half-French wife of Gerard, is being shut out of his life because of financial worries. One winter’s evening, Laure and Tom dance together at a local ball, and suddenly a world of possibilities opens up between them. Can they can forget the troubles of their own home lives and find a new excitement, a new solace? It’s only a game, after all, not for real…But playing with fire can hurt, as they both find out.
Diana Appleyard is a writer, broadcaster and freelance journalist for a number of national newspapers and magazines. She worked for the BBC as an Education Correspondent, before deciding to give up her full-time job to work from home, a decision which formed the basis for her first novel, Homing Instinct. She lives with her husband Ross and their two young daughters in an Oxfordshire farmhouse. Homing Instinct, A Class Apart, Out of Love and her most recent novel, Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover are all published by Black Swan.
