The golden hour - William Nicholson

Maggie, 30, and Andrew, 32, have been together for eighteen months. It's a good relationship, and Andrew has recently made the decision to take up the offer of a new job in Lewes. This has implications. As the first chapter begins, Andrew says to Maggie, 'I've been thinking...'. She knows at once that he's about to suggest they move in together.

In that instant she realises, for the first time, that fond though she is of Andrew she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life with him. On the other hand, if she parts with him now, what if she never meets someone as easy to be with? What if she stays single? Is an okay guy better than none?

This is the dilemma that Maggie lives out over the next seven days. She breaks up with Andrew, suffers doubts, confides in her best girlfriend. The girlfriend, Josie, mediates with a grief-stricken Andrew, and ends up in bed with him. This unintended betrayal causes Maggie, to her humiliation, to see Andrew quite differently, and to end up wanting him back again.