
by Jojo Moyes
Merham is a well-ordered 1950s seaside town: the kind of town in which everyone knows their place (and those who don't are promptly put in it). Lottie Swift, an evacuee who has grown up with the respectable Holden family, loves Merham, while the Holdens' daughter Celia chafes against the constraints of the town.
When a group of bohemians takes over Arcadia, a stark Art Deco house on the seafront, the girls are as drawn to its temptations as Merham's citizens are appalled by them. They set in place a chain of events both within the Holden family and Merham itself which will have longstanding and tragic consequences for all concerned.
Now, almost fifty years on, Arcadia is returning to life, and its inhabitants stirring up strong feelings again. And prompting more than one person to look into their own romantic history and ask: Can you ever leave your past behind?
Pauline Sara Jo Moyes was born on 4 August 1969 and in Maidstone, Kent, England, UK, but grew up in London. She was the only child of Elizabeth J. McKee and James C. Moyes. She studied at Royal Holloway, University of London and Bedford New College, London University. She lives on a farmhouse in Great Sampford, Essex with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children. After a varied career including stints as a minicab controller, typer of braille statements for blind people for NatWest, and brochure writer for Club 18-30 she did a degree at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London University. In 1992 She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University, and apart from 1994 when she worked in Hong Kong for the Sunday Morning Post, she worked at The Independent for ten years, including stints as Assistant news editor and Arts and Media Correspondent. She has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. She is one of only a few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association and has been translated into eleven different languages.

by Jojo Moyes
Merham is a well-ordered 1950s seaside town: the kind of town in which everyone knows their place (and those who don't are promptly put in it). Lottie Swift, an evacuee who has grown up with the respectable Holden family, loves Merham, while the Holdens' daughter Celia chafes against the constraints of the town.
When a group of bohemians takes over Arcadia, a stark Art Deco house on the seafront, the girls are as drawn to its temptations as Merham's citizens are appalled by them. They set in place a chain of events both within the Holden family and Merham itself which will have longstanding and tragic consequences for all concerned.
Now, almost fifty years on, Arcadia is returning to life, and its inhabitants stirring up strong feelings again. And prompting more than one person to look into their own romantic history and ask: Can you ever leave your past behind?
Pauline Sara Jo Moyes was born on 4 August 1969 and in Maidstone, Kent, England, UK, but grew up in London. She was the only child of Elizabeth J. McKee and James C. Moyes. She studied at Royal Holloway, University of London and Bedford New College, London University. She lives on a farmhouse in Great Sampford, Essex with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children. After a varied career including stints as a minicab controller, typer of braille statements for blind people for NatWest, and brochure writer for Club 18-30 she did a degree at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London University. In 1992 She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University, and apart from 1994 when she worked in Hong Kong for the Sunday Morning Post, she worked at The Independent for ten years, including stints as Assistant news editor and Arts and Media Correspondent. She has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. She is one of only a few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association and has been translated into eleven different languages.