"Romance, righting wrongs, and the dirty deeds of the filthy rich: this domestic noir thriller reels with shocking secrets through a Cinderella-esque set-up."
The exile of Eve Ainsworth’s effortlessly gripping Exile is Stevie, a young working-class journalist who returns to her hometown when her dad falls ill. Three years have passed since she jilted Harry, her privileged fiancé, at the altar and fled to New York, leaving tongues wagging as to why she left. While she’s here to be with her dad, suggestive seeds about another reason for her return are sown early on, planting the path for a suspenseful story that gradually reveals why Stevie left, and why she’s back, through a second-chance romance that explores the exploitative power of rich men.
Like the villagers and Harry, readers will be desperate to find out why Stevie dumped him in such a humiliating fashion. They’d fallen in love while she worked as a cleaner for his wealthy parents, and had planned to move into a house that was “a Cinderella story in itself. Something that looked like nothing much…but actually had great potential. I became the Cinderella story too. I remember how everyone in this village used to gossip about it. ‘Look at the little cleaner girl who has fallen in love with a Logan…’”
Meanwhile, Harry’s new fiancé, an ambitious woman who works for his dad, is Stevie’s polar opposite. Fliss is an expensively-manicured, long-limbed blonde beauty while Stevie is more Carlsberg than champagne, to paraphrase her self-assessment. For his part, Harry is something of a lost soul who’s thrown into a state of confusion when Stevie returns: might his ex be as manipulative and money-grabbing as his father and Fliss insist? As the story twists to an explosive showdown at a showy party, fans of edgy romance will be rapt by the need to know the truth through a web of doubt and distrust.
Stevie and Harry's wedding was meant to be the highlight of the year, a fantasy come true. Working as a cleaner for Harry's family, Stevie never imagined the wealthy and privileged Harry would ever look her way, let alone propose.
So why did she jilt him at the altar?
Three years later, Stevie's back. A successful journalist, on the surface she's returned to look after her sick father, but she's asking questions about Harry's family that soon cast a suspicious light on her.
Even as Harry tries to stay away, the two are drawn to each other time and time again. Then Stevie is attacked and put in hospital. Someone is willing to go to any lengths to keep her quiet...
Dark, twisty and packed full of emotional gut-punches, this romance is perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover, Chloe Walsh and Mercedes Ron.
Exile features in the following genres: Family Drama, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Romance / Relationship Stories, Thriller and Suspense, Modern and Contemporary romance, Romantic suspense, Dark romance, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Health and illness, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Narrative theme: Social issues, Psychology, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Fiction, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Modern and Contemporary romance, Romantic suspense, Dark romance, Family Drama, Fiction: narrative themes, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Narrative theme: Social issues, Narrative theme: Health and illness, Society and Social Sciences, Psychology
Exile is available in Paperback
Exile was written by Eve Ainsworth and published by Canelo Romance an imprint of Canelo
Exile has 319 pages
£8.99
