The real thing - Catherine Alliott

A glorious tale of love and hilarity from No. 1 bestseller Catherine Alliott.

'What do you think I am, Laura? Some bored Putney housewife with seven-year itch who's just ripe for bumping into her glamorous ex-boyfriend on holiday, ditching her nice, safe, comfortable husband and embarking on a steamy affair with him? This isn't one of your Aga sagas, you know, this is me, Tessa Hamilton, happily married mother of two, and apart from anything else I went out with him years ago...'

Everyone's got one - an old boyfriend with whom they never fell out of love, they simply parted because the time wasn't right. And for thirty-year-old Tessa Hamilton it's Patrick Cameron, the gorgeous, moody, rebellious boy she met at seventeen; the boy her vicar father thoroughly disapproved of; the boy who had left her to go to Italy to paint. And now he's back.