GUEST BLOG – EVA GLYN

CHARACTERS OF A CERTAIN AGE

I have always liked people and I have always liked wine, firmly believing that both are more interesting as they mature. So why does so much romantic fiction feature characters in the first (or, at a push, second) bloom of youth, when those in the third age are largely ignored?

After all I have friends in their sixties who have fallen in love, and why wouldn’t they? For so many retirement is an opportunity to change things around, whether they are single through circumstance or choice. A time of excitement, of new beginnings. And of downright terror about what might lie ahead.

This is where Fran Thomson, my protagonist in The Collaborator’s Daughter, finds herself. She quit her job to care for her stepfather, but now he has died, and when she looks the future in the face it’s rather too shapeless and empty. Not only that, but the past shifts under her feet as well, when she discovers the birth father she always believed died a hero, was executed as a Nazi collaborator.

Fran somehow finds the courage to travel to Dubrovnik to try to find out what happened. I am not altogether sure I would have had the guts, but then she’s a romantic heroine and I am not.

A romantic heroine who, by her own admission, is carrying a few too many pounds and hasn’t a clue how to apply clever make up. So she is more than surprised when Jadran Novak, a Croatian silver fox who was roped into helping her find out about her father by his nephew, begins to take a more than friendly interest and suggests a research trip:

Fran gazed at the clothes spread out on the bed. They were going for three nights, that was all. Why was she making such a meal of it? Her denim skirt would do for the evenings, and she knew Jadran liked her embroidered cardigan, so she’d take that as well.

Despite the difficulties of packing, there was a frisson of something about the trip that took her back to being a girl again, back to the shared house in Parsons Green. This was what they’d do before a night on the town; lay potential outfits on their beds, then run from room to room in their underwear, giggling and squealing, borrowing a skirt here, a pair of tights there …

Oh my god. Underwear. Hers was utilitarian to say the least. Sensible cotton knickers and well-constructed bras. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to see them. Were they?

Fumbling her phone she checked Jadran’s text again. He had booked them rooms, plural. Her slightly tatty and greying knickers would remain her secret. As would the folds of flesh they strained to hide. Honestly, she could have at least tried to diet while she was here, but what with a glass or two of wine every night, and baking cakes for Jadran … But it was fine. He’d booked two rooms. Clearly his intentions weren’t sexual at all.

The tiny lurch of disappointment surprised her. Yes, it was a lovely fantasy to want to be kissed and held in his arms, but the reality of going any further was frankly appalling. But that wasn’t entirely true either. A tiny part of her, a part that had been hidden for so long she had almost forgotten it existed, wanted more. Alone in her bed at night, all sorts of more. But in the cold light of day even the thought absolutely terrified her.

Eva Glyn writes relationship-driven fiction set in Croatia for One More Chapter, and she’s rather close to sixty herself. Find out more at www.evaglynauthor.com.

Want to read on? Then follow my lead and download this fabulous novel …….. review to follow in the fullness of time.

Buy link for The Collaborator’s Daughter:
https://mybook.to/CollaboratorsDaughter