With a bonus exerpt from The Summer Before the War

Honour, duty and a properly brewed cup of tea. The sweet, moving and uplifting story of a highly unlikely relationship between a very proper English gentleman and a widowed Pakistani shopkeeper, now in paperback.

' ... you may find you've fallen head over heels for Ms Simonson's funny, barbed, delightfully winsome storytelling. Don't say you weren't warned. It's about intelligence, heart, dignity and backbone.' - New York Times

Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired) leads a quiet life in the small rural English village of Edgecombe St Mary where he values the proper things that Englishmen have treasured for generations - honour, duty, decorum and a properly brewed cup of tea.

It takes news of his brother's death, though, to open the Major's eyes to Mrs Jasmina Ali, the village shopkeeper, and confound all the plans his patronising son and the local ladies have for him. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more.

A most unlikely hero, Major Pettigrew must first contend with irate relatives and an outraged village before he comes to understand his own heart.

Written with warmth, feeling and a delightfully dry sense of humour, this very modern love story will have you cheering wildly for the Major and Mrs Ali and believing that sometimes life does give you a second chance.