Books

‘Oh, what a gorgeous book this is – it gripped me and wouldn’t let me go. So engaging, so beautifully written – I loved every single thing about it.’
JILL MANSELL

‘We Are All Made of Stars is simply wonderful. Profoundly moving and ultimately hopeful, this story – like its deftly drawn characters – refuses to let you forget it.’
MIRANDA DICKINSON

‘A beautiful story of aching sadness and boundless joy, sparkling with love, humour and humanity. It somehow manages to deliver tears, laughter, inspiration and wonder in one compelling, breathless tale that will make you laugh, cry and fight for what you love with everything you have. Stunning. ’
LUCY ROBINSON

‘It’s utterly wonderful, and my heart is overflowing on finishing it. It’s tender, funny, heart-breaking and beautiful.’
RACHAEL LUCAS

‘Rowan’s latest novel has true star quality: it’ll make you think, make you cry, make you turn the pages, and, finally, make you glad to be alive. The Memory Book is one of my favourite books – but We Are All Made of Stars is even better. Joyful and moving.’
KATE HARRISON

Click to access the first chapter

‘I can’ tell you how much I loved this book. It did make me cry, but it also made me laugh. Like Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes, I couldn’t put it down. A tender testament to maternal love.’
– Katie Ford

The Other Sister

There are moments in every person’s life when something as simple as a wrong turn, an impulsive decision, or a door softly drawing to a close can change everything forever. Moments, that Willow Briars knew, better than anyone, were impossible to turn back from, moments that if you weren’t very careful could shape the rest of your life.

Which was why she was trying rather hard not to murder Lucy Palmer.

Many words and phrases that have frequently been used to describe thirty-nine year old Willow, but not until this very moment would anybody have ever called her murderous.

Efficient and capable, was how Willow was often described by her boss Victoria Kincade, chief executive officer of Victoria Kincade Talent Ltd. Invaluable, resourceful and a genuine treasure.

Good old Will, was how many of her colleagues referred to her. Fun, funny, down to earth Willow Briars, always up for a good night out, says it how it is Will. And Willow knew perfectly well that if any of them were asked to describe her physically, they would dwell on her lovely skin, beautiful blue eyes, shiny hair and great smile and fantastic taste in beautiful shoes that made up for her rather limited choice in fashion.

Her identical twin sister Holly who was exactly twenty-six minutes younger than her, called her her rock, her darling, her soul mate, her other half and Willow could use all of those words to describe Holly too. Her four-year-old twin nieces, Jess and Jem, called her cuddly Aunty Pillow. Sweet Aunty Will and nicest of all, best Aunty in the world Aunty Will, which was a compliment with limited range as Willow was also their only Aunt, but still she loved it.

Depending on her mood her mother called her either the London twin or the disappointing one.

Her ex husband had started off calling her darling, but after two years of marriage ended describing her as a waste of space. And once for a very brief time his daughter, Chloe, had called not minded one little bit if people thought Willow was her mum.

Willow Briars was, is and had been many things to many people but so far never violent. Not until now, until Lucy Palmer, Graduate trainee and the daughter of a family friend of Victoria had joined the agency six weeks ago and Victoria gave her the desk opposite Will and instructed her to look after the barely twenty-one year old ingénue. From that moment on, to Willow’s great surprise she discovered she would most certainly be capable of bopping another human being over the head with a brick and then feeding them into a wood chipper.

The Happy Home For Broken Hearts

There were three mismatched chairs at the kitchen table. When they had moved into the house Nick has taken them to a local junk shop where he had spotted a large ancient and battered pine tbale that he thought would be perfect for the new kitchen. Ellen had complained that it didn´t have matching chairs, and Nick had laughedm waving his arm around him at the collection of disowned chairs of all shapes and sizes.

´O know,´ he´d said winking at an enchanted Charlie. ´Let´s choose a different chair each. One that will suit us and be out chiar whenever we sit at the table.´

Ellen had chosen a chairthat she thought was most in keeping with the table, a humble pine affair with a simple back and straight legs. Nick had managed to find a dark wood carver that looked like it had once belonged in much grander surroundings and had ideas far about its station, with its turned arms and strudy squat bowed legs. Charlie, much younger, still a baby really, had found a brightly painted chair that must have once belonged to an amateur artisit. Every leg was painted a different primary colour and the backrest was an acidic green decorated with a painted eye. Ever since that day the three of them had always sat in their special chairs, until Nick dies and then his remained stubbornly vacant, even Hannah knew better than to sit in it. Today Sabine was sitting in Charlie´s chair and he took up residence in his mother´s. Ellen leaned against the kitchen counter and watched, fretting about how to break the news to her lodgers that one of her kitchen chairs was off limits.

The Accidental Family

‘Hello Carrie.’ Sophie spoke into the wind, which snatched her words away with urgent greedy gusts. She felt her stomach contract as realised how nervous she was. ‘I’m going to marry Louis. I’m going to marry your husband. There – I’ve said it, and no matter how many times I say it out loud, it still sounds like a reader’s true story in a gossip magazine. But there it is: its happening….it really is happening. You know, ever since I met Bella and Izzy and Louis, I’ve wondered what you’d think, how you’d feel about it if you were here. I tried to love your girls because I loved you, and that was a lot easier than I thought. And I tried not to love Louis because I loved you, and I’m sorry Carrie….but that was impossible.’

Sophie pushed her windswept hair off of her face and took a deep breath. ‘The hardest thing is that I know I would never have met them if you hadn’t died. I would probably had gone on having my secretary send them cards and gifts every birthday and Christmas. Louis might have stayed in Peru, and how knows if I would have seen you again. It breaks my heart that I had to lose you to find them….but, Carrie, you know I would fight for your daughters, that’s why you made me their guardian, and you knew that after quite a lot of stupidity and a serious number of epiphanies that I would love them as much as I do. And I’ll never let then down, I promise you.’

The Accidental Mother

‘Are you going to be OK?’ Sophie asked her again.

‘I said I was, didn’t I?’ Bella told her.

It was true, Bella had said that at just after three in the early hours of the morning. About half an hour earlier than that she had padded into the living room and kneeling by the side of the sofa had stared at Sophie until finally her sluggish and underused sixth sense had kicked in and she opened her eyes.

‘Oh good,’ Bella had said. ‘You’re awake.’

It turned out, probably inevitably Sophie concluded, that she was not going to have to break the news of Louis imminent arrival, not to Bella at least because Bella already knew. She had ‘overheard’ Sophie talking about him to her mum last night and had heard her saying that he would be back in the morning. Bella had tried to go to sleep and pretend she didn’t know about Louis, like she had to at Christmas when she pretended she didn’t know that it was Grandma who put the presents at the bottom of their beds and not Father Christmas, because obviously it wasn’t Father Christmas as no-one had told him where they had moved to and as she knew for a fact that Grandma didn’t post their letters to him as she had found them in her knitting basket.

‘But then.’ Bella had told Sophie gravely. ‘I realised that I had only pretended about Christmas so that Izzy wouldn’t find out and get upset but as Izzy is going to meet HIM in the morning anyway I thought it was better to get up and come and see if you were awake than to worry about it all by myself.’

Sophie didn’t know whether to be touched of terrified but she had somehow made room for Bella, who clambered over her and tucked her feet under Sophie’s duvet.

Another Mother’s Life

‘This is ridiculous,’ Catherine said as Kirsty, one palm firmly securing her forehead, plucked her eyebrows.

‘Only you would say that,’ Kirsty said through gritted teeth as she jerked another hair out of Catherine’s tender hair. ‘Only you would think that having eyebrows that frame your eyes instead of hanging over them is a good plan.’

‘I don’t think anything about eyebrows, eyebrows are not important to me,’ Catherine said, beginning to regret agreeing to go out with Kirsty at all.

Kirsty paused for a minute, the tweezers hovering menacingly in front of Catherine’s face.

‘Tell me you shave your legs,’ she pleaded. Cathering looked at her sensible shoes and said nothing.

‘Good God, Catherine! What’s wrong with you?’ Kirsty exclaimed.

‘What’s right with me, you mean,’ Catherine retorted, ‘I don’t feel the need to denude myself in order to be attractive to men, and besides, what’s the point of shaving my legs? No one ever sees them.’

Kirsty attacked Catherine’s brow with renewed vigour.

‘The point of shaving your legs is the same as always wearing sexy underwear even when you’re not on a date. It makes you feel both womanly and beautiful, and then your sexiness exudes from within.’ Kirsty yanked hard on a particularly stubborn hair, making Catherine wince. ‘No wonder you are so…’ Kirsty struggled to find a suitable adjective and failed.

Growing Up Twice

River Deep

‘Are you insane?’ Sarah blinked at her, stunned. ‘What on earth do you think seeing her is going to achieve? It will just make you look like a stalker and drive Christian even further away, if it’s possible to get further away than another woman’s bed!’

Maggie shook her head, desperate to make Sarah see.

‘No, listen. It’s not stalking. I don’t mean actually talk to her. I mean just go to the Fresh Talent 2 branch and get a look at her.’ Maggie thought it sounded perfectly reasonable.

‘That is stalking!’ Sarah exclaimed just as the conversation in the salon lulled momentarily. ‘That is stalking,’ she repeated, lowering her voice a little. ‘And I am having nothing to do with it! In any case, its my one day with Becca and Sam and I promised to take them to the flicks. Becca even wants to go. Do you know what a rare event that is in our household?’

‘We could all go,’ Becca joined them at the counter, her face suddenly bright and alert. Sarah looked from girl to woman to girl and back again, giving Maggie her best I’ll never forgive you for this stare.

‘I’m not taking my children stalking. The End. OK?’

‘Becca tossed her hair and tutted loudly. ‘Oh go on mum! Aunty Mags really needs us and we’d be good cover. They’d never expect you to be stalking with a couple of kids in tow!’

The Baby Group

You could phone your mum, Alice suggested tentatively, and only because she was safely on the other end of a phone line and she knew that Natalie couldn’t throw something at her.

‘I am not going to phone my mum, ‘ Natalie told her sharply, pressing the palm of her hand against her forehead as she spoke. ‘I would rather pull out my own finger nails with my teeth than contact my mother and tell that only have I just had a baby when she didn’t even know that I was pregnant, but I am also unmarried and not in any kind of relationship. I am definitely not asking her for any help. She’d be so happy she’d probably drop dead on the spot.’ Natalie paused for a moment. ‘Actually, perhaps I will call.’

‘Natalie!’ Alice didn’t like it when Natalie made jokes about wishing her mother’s demise, which was principally why Natalie made them. She was very fond of her friend and business partner, but the two women could not have been more different. They were like chalk and cheese or perhaps more appropriately, considering their business, like soft chiffon camiknickers and a red lacy thong with diamante detail. Natalie was well aware that she was the thong, often showy, trying too hard to be sexy and sometimes quite uncomfortable to be around. At least that was what she had been like before Jack.’

After Ever After