Sometimes love doesn't follow the rules

On the eve of her forty-second birthday, Esme's husband announces he's leaving her for a twenty-something sound bath practitioner. Desperate to avoid becoming her mother (who left her marriage in tatters and abandoned Esme as a child), she throws herself into her work, but when she meets new office temp Callum, Esme finds herself in the middle of what appears to be a second sexual awakening.

Inexplicably drawn to Callum and the potential of someone eleven years her junior, Callum and Esme embark on a secret affair that gives Esme back the joy she was missing in her staid, joyless marriage.

The two grow closer, but Esme knows that she can never be more than a secret, physical connection - she's too old, too career-driven, she's approaching the end of fertility. What could a young, handsome aspiring actor want with her, anyway?

But when Esme is forced to choose between what society deems acceptable and her feelings for Callum, will she follow her heart, or her head?

A sharp, sexy, funny love story about ageing, leaving your baggage behind, and the power of dating like a man. Fans of The Idea of You, Daisy Buchanan, Caroline O'Donoghue and the film Babygirl will love this.

Having whiled away the majority of her secondary education writing fan fiction about Leonardo DiCaprio, Alex Neve left school at sixteen after the first boy she slept with told everyone about it on MSN Messenger. She's been writing about sex ever since.

© 2026 Alex Neve (P) 2026 DK Audio