Waiting in the wings - Donna Hay

Actress Annie Mitchell is devastated. Her husband Max has run off with her best friend, leaving her with a stack of unpaid bills and the self-esteem of the last sandwich in a railway buffet. Her unsympathetic agent is not much help either. Assuring Annie that there is life after heartbreak, she instructs her to go to a party where she will meet the artistic director of the Phoenix theatre in Middlethorpe who just happens to be looking for a female lead in his forthcoming production of Much Ado About Nothing. Fortified by the odd glass or four of Dutch courage, Annie runs into old flame Nick Ryan whom she drunkenly ? and unsuccessfully ? attempts to seduce. Vowing that she will never, ever touch a drop of anything remotely alcoholic again, she staggers to the audition ? to find that the artistic director is none other than Nick Ryan, and she has been chosen to play Beatrice.

So Annie ends up in Middlethorpe ? possibly the most boring town in the north of England, she thinks. But she has reckoned without the series of freak accidents that look set to ensure that the Phoenix will never open, least of all on the opening night; and her feelings for Nick whom she has to acknowledge is not only tall and dark, but kind and disconcertingly sexy ?