The Courting Campaign

Storm in a teacup blown out of all proportion to make this story into a book, rather than a couple of paragraphs. Hester Conway, 34-year old widow and Justice of the Peace, acquits an 18-year old accused of driving during a 2-year driving license suspension; said 18-year old has an identical twin whose license is fine and who takes the blame instead. This is how she meets the twins uncle, Patrick Hazard, 36-year old ex hot-shot London lawyer, turned novelist, who has bought a house in the country, near Hester. Hester also runs a furniture and porcelain business with her brother-in-law, David Conway, who makes sought-after bespoke furniture and Patrick ventures in to buy a desk for his new home. Hester has been a widow for approximately 4 years; she married Richard Conway, David's brother and also a talented furniture maker, when he was in his early forties and she late twenties; 12 months on, he dies of a heart attack on their 1st year anniversary. They had a very good marriage and sex life so she still misses him greatly. Slowly, she and Patrick start to date, then become lovers. At some point, Hester finds out about the twin switch in court and that Patrick knew all about it and decides to cool things down so they can get to know each other more before marrying. At which point Patrick, really peeved that she's taken the twin switch so seriously - and I agree with him - after all, no harm was done, no reckless driving, simply that driving was done once, while license was suspended - mocks her and implies marriage was never on the cards on his part and an affair was all he was interested in ....he only says that as he's hurt by Hester's attitude to the very mild lie. He had fully intended to ask her to marry him, but his guilt at the twin-switch in court was making him delay his proposal. Needless to say, all misunderstandings are sorted out in the end for a HEA, but the whole premise of the book is really silly and much-ado-about-nothing.

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.