The Russian lieutenant's woman - Barbara Davies

I didn't see your father walk into the room. Lieutenant Dmitry Andreyevich Valinsky swivelled in his chair towards me, took off his hat and smiled. When I look at you now, I think of that smile as the moment that we started creating you.

This is the story of a very modern love affair written down by a mother for her child. Barbara Davies, globe-trotting tabloid journalist, had a life many women would envy. But behind the successful, exciting career lay a tattered love-life which left her feeling empty and unfulfilled. Deep down, she was haunted by the fear that the things which really mattered - enduring love and motherhood - would lay forever out of reach.

Then one day, she was sent to Russia on an assignment for the Daily Mirror. There, she met Lieutenant Dmitry Andreyevich Valinsky and her world was turned upside down. Overwhelmed by his physical beauty and the harsh simplicity of his day-to-day existence in a freezing Russian winter, she embarked on a whirlwind, passionate affair with him, determined to turn her back on her old life forever.

Honest, poignant and often uplifting, this stunning book reflects on the complexities of love and how one chance meeting can change everything.