Ah, the joys of first love! I’m sure we can all remember our first, right? Those flickering glances, that sped-up heartbeat, the pain and pleasure of wanting to be right next to them but being terrified about what happens when you are. Will I make a fool of myself? What will I say to them? Am I talking too much? Am I not talking enough? Do I smell all right? What are they thinking? Are we going to kiss? The list goes on. It is surely a truth universally acknowledged that the path of true love never did run smoothly, and for Rory and Leo in Coming Home to Roseford Villas, first love, second time around, that’s absolutely the case!
I suppose we’ve all imagined what we’d say to the person who broke our heart the first time if, twenty or thirty years on, we came face to face with them. And while, thankfully, this has never come to pass for me (well, at least the coming face-to-face bit!), it’s only human to wonder. And it was that ‘what if’ that led to the writing of this novel. Can you ever start again with a first love? What about all of those years in between? Is remembering how things were the key to starting anew, or do you have to accept, and perhaps grow to love, the differences? Would you revert to being that inexperienced teenager or would you be the mature adult you’ve grown to be? Or, perhaps, a little bit of both.
While Rory and Leo’s story is fictional, the notion of rediscovering a first love was something that I hope appeals to my readers. Who hasn’t logged onto Facebook (or for those of a certain age, Friends Reunited) and found themselves searching for the person who, when you were in your teens, you totally thought was “The One”? I remember there being a spate of news stories after the birth of Facebook when people had reconnected with past loves, for better or in some cases for worse. And while social media makes this easier, what happens when you do come face to face, in Rory and Leo’s case, on the doorstep after twenty-odd years?
I hope you enjoy being with Rory and Leo as they tread that very tricky path of getting to know each other again, and I hope that some of their encounters resonate with you. And if you have your own tales, for better or worse, about reconnecting with your first love, please do let me know in the usual social media places – I’d love to hear them!