A Brief Encounter

A woman alone? "I didn't imagine a woman like you would have reached your age without several men in her life...." Olivia's carefully cultivated veneer of indifference was usually enough to deter admirers. But Max Hamilton seemed determined to find out what lay beneath. Was he spurred on by genuine attraction to her and the romantic atmosphere of northern Italy? Or was it that he found Olivia's coolness--the result of the harrowing experience of her first marriage--a challenge?

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Romance, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.