I’m endlessly grateful to my agent Lizzy Kremer for her wisdom and kindness, and to her stellar colleagues Harriet Moore, Maddalena Cavaciuti and Kaynat Begum – in fact, all the truly excellent people at David Higham Associates. Thanks too to the wonderful team at Transworld – Francesca Best, Sally Williamson, Frankie Gray, Lara Stevenson, Vicky Palmer, Hayley Barnes, Emma Burton, to name but a few – for making another beautiful book out of my Word files and scribbly sketch pads.

I’ve always loved a good chat, but conversation has felt particularly precious in a time when words were the only human contact we had. Thank you, Sarah Iwanszuk, for your long, enlightening conversations, and thank you, Chris Manby, for making me laugh when it was that or crying. And even bigger thanks to my locked-down family, especially my magnificent husband, Scott. Greater love hath no man than one who builds an office for his wife. Outside.

Most of all, thank you to everyone who said hello over the last year or two – virtually, digitally or in real life. Talking about books with readers has always been the best part of being a writer, but this year each message was like a tiny beacon of light twinkling across the darkness, and it’s meant more than I thought possible. Thank you – and please never stop.

Read more

If you enjoyed After the Rain, keep reading for an extract of Unexpected Lessons in Love – a heart-warming and uplifting read

Read more

Prologue

Brooklyn Bridge, October

Jeannie was walking with Dan’s hands over her eyes but she wasn’t worried. Right now, here in this delicious champagne bubble of a moment, she was wrapped in a bliss that she’d never believed you could feel in real life.

So far their long weekend in New York had been one romantic surprise after another. Dan had planned it in secret, but he’d chosen everything Jeannie would have chosen herself: a morning spent browsing the vintage shops at Chelsea Market, then an afternoon crunching through copper leaves and sipping hot chocolate in Central Park. Cocktails and oysters, yellow cabs and multicoloured Times Square lights, sneaky kisses as they rode the crowded subway: every second had felt as if the two of them were starring in their own movie.

The hotel was so gorgeous Jeannie could have happily spent the whole weekend in their tiny super-chic room, with its soft rugs and even softer lighting. And of course, with Dan. Just thinking about Dan’s tanned skin against the crisp white bedlinen gave her a hot rush of happiness: there were some highlights Jeannie wouldn’t be sharing with her mum when she got home.