Josie Silver

One cottage. Two strangers.
Every great love story starts somewhere...

Cleo writes about love stories every day. She just isn't living one of her own.

When the editor of her dating column asks her to marry herself on a remote Irish island - a sensational piece to mark Cleo's thirtieth birthday - Cleo agrees. She's alone but not lonely, right? She can handle a solo adventure.

Cleo arrives at her luxury cabin to find a tall, dark, stubborn American who insists it's actually his. Mack refuses to leave, and Cleo won't budge either. With a storm fast approaching, they reluctantly hunker down together. It's just one night, after all . . .

But what if one night on the island is just the beginning?

Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They've been together for almost a decade, and Lydia thinks their love is indestructible. But she's wrong. Because on her 27th birthday, Freddie dies in a tragic accident. So now it's just Lydia, and all she wants to do is hide indoors and sob 'til her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to live her life well. So, enlisting the help of his best friend and her sister Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world and starts to live - perhaps even to love - again. Then something unbelievable happens, and Lydia gets another chance at her old life with Freddie. But what if there's someone in her new life who wants her to stay?

Isla's vibrant childhood was filled with bands, noise and travel, thanks to her mum Vivien being an 80s music icon. Vivien might not have been much of a cook, but her treasured homemade vanilla ice cream established a Friday-night tradition that outlasted jobs, boyfriends and rental houses. Even, sadly, Vivien herself.

Now Isla is escaping her various heartbreaks to the one place that has always felt like home: New York. She finds a job, a flat, a friend. And then Isla tastes her mother's ice cream at a gelateria in Little Italy. She seeks out the owner and finds Gio, a man who, like Isla, is surrounded by people and yet feels entirely alone. But the most surprising thing? They've met before...

So can the two of them untangle their pasts and find love in the present?