The Chateau of Lost Vines

She came to sell a crumbling French chateau. The bank had other ideas. So did the groundskeeper.

Rebecca Flynn is forty-three, freshly redundant and very good at measuring things. When her late uncle leaves her a listing Loire Valley chateau, a feral vineyard and a mountain of debt, she arrives with a spreadsheet and a plan to be home within the week. Then the bank sets its terms: book real weddings, with real deposits, and pass a final safety inspection in eight weeks, or lose everything.

Standing between Rebecca and ruin is Luc Martin. A former sommelier with silver at his temples, a Bordeaux job offer he has not quite refused and a maddening proverb for every occasion, he stayed out of loyalty to her uncle. Not, he makes quite clear, to her. She measures acidity; he reads a vintage like poetry. Their arguments soon become the best part of her day.

But a wine sterilised into silence, a bride who cancels in public and one stormy night that goes badly wrong will test everything they are building: the chapel, the vines, and the fragile thing between them that neither of them can measure.

A warm, witty, clean later-in-life romance about second chances, stubborn old buildings and learning that some things cannot be controlled into safety. No spice, just banter, candlelight and a happy ever after worth waiting for.

Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan and Mandy Baggot.