3am decision leads to new life

Blessed - or cursed - with a boy's name, Darrell Kincaid is a romance writer who has been widowed for three years following the sudden death of her husband, Tom. You don't, as she says, expect a young, apparently fit man to drop dead after a 21km run.

In one of those 3am decisions, Darrell decides to start a new life, moving from New Zealand to London.

There, she is able to rent a house cheaply because it is being renovated but, even without the distraction of the builder, Anselo, and his apprentice, somehow the serious novel she plans is failing to materialise. Instead, Darrell is spending a disproportionate amount of time in a local cafe, where she is ignored by a cross-section of locals, to whom she give nicknames such as Mr Perfect, Big Man and Miss Flaky.

Eventually, the cafe's clientele begins to interact, largely because of Darrell, but her own life remains on hold. Until almost the end of The Sweet Second Life of Darrell Kincaid, her love life is about as barren as a desert plateau, but this is a romance, after all, so naturally author Catherine Robertson brings it all together in a feel-good way that promises happily ever after.

• Gillian Vine is a Dunedin writer.