Guest Post with Phillipa Ashley, author of "It Happened One Night"

 

Can first love last?

A few months ago, I went to a school reunion. There were around a dozen of us invited from our Sixth Form and if I’m honest, I didn’t really want to go. Don’t get me wrong, I like the people who were going to attend. In fact, one of them is still my best mate and the other is now my husband!

I keep in touch with a few of the others via Facebook and even occasionally see them. I wish them all well but I’m just not one for revisiting the past. My schooldays were thirty years ago and I’ve simply moved on.

And the thing is... I also knew that my ex boyfriend was invited. I hadn’t seen him for around 15 years and didn’t relish the inevitable awkwardness that I thought might arise when he and my husband were in the same room.

In the end, things were all very amiable, of course, with everyone proudly swapping photos of their families. I felt nothing for my ex beyond the mildest curiosity and was very happy I’d chosen to be with my lovely, gorgeous husband.

But imagine if we hadn’t been attached now and our relationship at school had been more than youthful bit of fun – and what if we’d set eyes on each other all these years later and were still wildly attracted?

That’s the premise of my new contemporary romance, It Happened One Night. It tells the story of Sophie and Adam, two young people from the same Lakeland village who have a seriously intense relationship that ends in a very dramatic way.

Sophie and Adam don’t see each other again for ten years - and when they do finally meet; they’ve gone in very different directions. They’re both are determined to keep things that way... but can they?

I’d love to know if anyone else has had any reunions with an ex and how they felt...

It Happened One Night

Published as an e book by Piatkus Entice on June 6th 2013

Blurb:

Sophie McBride has been in love with Adam Templar for as long as she can remember. Talented, brilliant and sexy, he shines like the sun over the tiny Lakeland village where she's grown up. Now, at eighteen, she has her own big ideas and what's more, Adam is home from university and has finally noticed her . . . really noticed her. When he asks her to a party, she dares to hope that all her dreams can come true, but what happens that night sets off a chain of events that bring heartbreak for Sophie - and lead to Adam leaving Langmere under the darkest of clouds.

Ten years later, no one is more shocked than Sophie to find him back in the village. Now an up-and-coming film director, he's returned to make a drama about a notorious local poet and brought his glamorous cast, crew - and girlfriend - with him. As the on-screen drama plays out, can Sophie and Adam lay the past to rest or will history repeat itself?