Nicole had almost convinced herself that thirty-five wasn't too young to embrace life as a single cat-lady, but then Guy – or D'Artagnan as she swiftly nicknamed him – swaggered into the London office where she worked and everything changed.
After a whirlwind few months, she found herself married to the world's most arrogant Frenchman and living in the slightly dilapidated château he'd recently inherited in south west France.
But despite her sassy attitude and pithy observations about dragging a 17th century chateau into the 21st century, Nicole's past is dark. She suffered a difficult childhood and struggled with drug addition during her ostensibly glamorous life as a model – and then there's her ex-boyfriend Karl who she'd loved so much and fled from after he shattered her heart.
Was she really over him when she married D'Artagnan? It seems that perhaps he isn't over her...
An amusing, occasionally heartbreaking romantic comedy set in a French château that just might still be home to one of D'Artagnan's ancestors...
Having been spirited away from London by D'Artagnan, the 21st Century's most arrogant Frenchman, Nicole is gradually settling in to her new life as mistress of his slightly dilapidated château in the depths of la France profonde.
Her first year of married life was rather more stressful than she'd expected and although she's struggling a little with the aftermath, she's determined to subdue her anxiety one way or another.
She's overjoyed when she meets her new French teacher Bérengère whose 10am lessons begin with an obligatory alcoholic aperitif and feature more about the nuances of French culture than endless verb conjugations.
But she's increasingly aware that a horrific experience from her past is about to catch up with her, and she knows that if she's ever to get justice, the process must at all costs be kept from her hot-blooded husband.
Meanwhile, there's a wedding to plan, a temperamental château to placate – and Nina, the neighbour's foster daughter who stirs up feelings that Nicole cannot ignore...
In the two years since D'Artagnan spirited Nicole away to his 17th century château in France, she has overcome obstacles and accomplished feats of which she'd never imagined herself capable.
Now, however, she has torpedoed D'Artagnan's joint business venture with the man she refers to as Satan – and although she feels no remorse about that, what does concern her is that she might seriously have misjudged the nature of the man she married.
That misjudgement could mean the end of her marriage, but it might also mean that her chance to finally become a mother is also jeopardised – something that would shatter her heart into a million pieces.
In this, the third and final book in the 'D'Artagnan' series, Nicole realises that her witty but often caustic assumptions about the people in her new life in France – including the ethereal presence of the Duchess with whom she shares D'Artagnan's ancestral home – might in fact be very wrong.
And she wonders: do fairy-tale endings really still exist, even for grown-ups?
At the start of another sizzling summer in the south of France, Taylor is excited to learn that her new neighbour is the daughter of film star parents. It's the perfect opportunity to put her journalistic skills to use and write a clandestine exposé about Imogen's celebrity family – as well as get the inside story about her husband's recent death.
But Taylor hadn't bargained for the enigmatic yet oddly compelling young woman that she befriends, and she certainly didn't imagine that the exposé she plans to write would be quite so explosive – nor that it would conjure up so many ghosts from her own past.
As the blistering Provençal summer unfolds, Taylor begins to realise that perhaps she isn't as tough as she likes to think she is, and that real resilience – like love – is often powerful enough to conquer even the most monstrous demons.
It's a shame that she can't tell her best friend Maddy, but Maddy has run off with Susan's husband. That's something else Susan wasn't expecting.
After fleeing to the French countryside to escape the double betrayal, Susan accidentally injures Max, a married man twenty-two years her junior. She insists on caring for him while he recovers, and un unexpected relationship develops between them.
As the stormy French summer unfolds, Susan and Max are forced to reconsider their futures as they become aware that perhaps they've both neglected one of the most fundamental needs in life – self-fulfilment.
A gripping emotional drama about desire, obligation and the pursuit of happiness that examines at what point in our lives we're entitled to step out of our existing orbit in order to focus on our own, secret internal solar system.