Penguin, London 2014

 Moyes worked as a journalist before she took up writing novels full time. She lives in Essex with her familiy and probably a big drooling dog. This is her 6th romantic novel, a Cinderella story if ever there was one, but told with a sharp eye and compassionate heart, and we readers love her for this combination. She tells her story about Ed, a rich computer specialist with his own firm, Jess, 27-year-old single mother of adolescent son Nicky (Gothson) and 10-year-old maths genius Constanze (Tanzie) and their huge dog Norman.

Jess lives in a council flat and works as a cleaner and parttime bartender to make ends meet, as her husband Marty has left them without ever contributing anything to their meagre income. Jess cleans posh holiday homes at the sea and that is how she meets Ed, one of the owners.  When he gets drunk in her bar, she brings him home and steals some money from him. Ed, on the other hand, is in trouble because he is accused of insider trading and faces a trial.

When Tanzie´s maths teacher organises for her to take part in a maths competition in Aberdeen, that could bring her the money for private education, Jess sets out in a rusty RollsRoyce that her ex has left her. The car and Jess break down, Ed happens to come along in his shiny new Audi and offers to take them to Scotland, where he wants to visit his dying father.

And now a heartbreaking road movie unfolds that in the end changes all their lives. Of course the reader knows, the happy ending is lurking round the corner, but how Moyes makes it happen is really great.