Excerpt from the Book

Jonty had no idea why God had chosen to allocate him more than his fair share of fortunate escapes and near misses, when plenty of chaps didn’t get any. But the Almighty must have a reason for wanting Jonty to grace the face of this earth. Now that he was being demobilized, he had to figure out what that reason was. Which was why he’d written to Katie.

She’d been adamant last time he’d seen her that she wanted nothing to do with him. She’d told him to leave, forcefully and at the top of her lungs. He only had himself to blame for that.

Nearly two years had passed, and he had to see if she had changed her mind. So he’d given her a choice. Meet me at the station if you think there’s any future for us.

And here she was.

“Hello, Katie-my-love.”

Chaps in the Royal Air Force had pictures of their sweethearts to kiss every night. But he’d only had memories––ones that played tricks on him during the hungry, dark hours before dawn. The Katie in his dreams was plump, even when she was sad or angry at him, but the one in front of him was thin, with hollow cheeks and hard angles across her face. Her waist, which had thickened during her pregnancy, now seemed even tinier than when he’d first met her.

“Hello, Jonty. It’s good to have you home.”

He chose to believe she meant it. He bent his head, attempting to catch the eyes she cast around, focusing on anything but him. She turned away then, and he followed the direction of her gaze.

Ah, her mother was here. As if this reunion didn’t have enough pressure, she’d added his watchful mother-in-law to the mix. “You brought your mother?”

Martha Baines held one of Katie’s younger siblings by the ear, watching them keenly, as though they were a puzzle she was determined to solve.

“She insisted.” Katie looked at him then, directly in the eye. “She said that if you were going to live under the same roof as her, she wanted to make sure you hadn’t become the savage, murdering kind while you were gone.” She dropped her voice, and he saw the genuine question in her eyes. “You haven’t, have you?”

“Not that I know of. But then if I had, I don’t think I’d be likely to admit it.”

Her lips tipped up at the joke. Not quite a smile. Just a softening of her delicate mouth. A hint that she might smile at him again. One day.

Want to know more about the book?

How do they rebuild a marriage that wasn’t real in the first place? If you love epic wartime romance with a dash of intrigue, you’ll love this second-chance, marriage-of-convenience love story. London, 1945: Two years ago, Jonty Ables married Katie Baines to save her and her unborn baby from shame. But now the war is all but over, the baby is gone and they must work out where their shaky marriage fits into lives irrevocably changed by war. Clinging to the memory of a time before all happiness evaporated, Katie works hard during the day as a seamstress. At night she comes home to a tiny terrace on a bomb-scarred street, crammed with her extended family and their problems. Years of estrangement sit between her and her recently demobilised husband. She’s not even sure she loves him. So why is she so crushed that he calls out another woman’s name in his sleep? Jonty is determined to honor the vows he made no matter how many ghosts plague him. But with such separate lives, his wife is more of a stranger than ever. When Katie’s friend goes missing, Jonty seizes the opportunity to help her find him just so they have reason to talk. But the war casts long shadows over their efforts, and fighting for their future might just be the hardest battle of them all.

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About the Author

Australian author Jennifer Mistmorgan sometimes feels like she was born in the wrong era. So she writes romantic historical fiction set in the 1940s, against the backdrop of WWII and its aftermath. She infuses her sweet romances with wartime drama, imperfect faith and a dash of intrigue. She lives in Canberra with her family and a wonky-eared West Highland terrier.      

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