A contemporary romance dealing with love and loss, misunderstandings, self-deception and self-realization.
Escaping from your past is never easy, as young hospital doctor Juliet discovers when she tries to start afresh, leaving her marriage and her career behind. Love blossoms rapidly when she meets the mysterious and forthright Nicholas, who seems to herald the new beginning she craves.
The past quickly dissoles into insignificance as their all-consuming romance propels them forward, but Juliet has to learn the price of happiness in the cruelest way possible.
Will she be able to clear the painful roots of her past in order for her future to grow strong and healthy?
Excerpt
She gazed at a street lamp in front of her, watching the moths jostling for position as they flapped round and round. She thought Nicholas was like that light, attracting all the moth-like creatures, the Annabels, the Clarissas, the Livvies and probably many more, all irresistibly drawn to his lovely flame. He could have married any one of them and made the same mistake as her. Had he always been entirely truthful with them all? Had he never come close to feeling that intensity of emotion he seemed to have shared with her, close enough at least to have wrong-footed somewhere en route? Could he really know himself so well and be so perfect? Robert certainly thought so. He made him sound like a saint. Saint Nicholas—no, sorry, got one of those already—and he was a do-gooder too!
Some ten or fifteen minutes must have passed and Julie wondered if Livvie and Nicholas had finished ‘catching up’ and whether Nicholas had been left with sufficient strength to have maneuvered her car from the drive without further damage to either it or the van. Damage her insurance company would now have to sort out for her.
“There you are!” he exclaimed from a point close behind her. “I’ve seen to your car for you.”
“And Livvie too, I trust?”
He actually managed the merest flicker of a smile, if it wasn’t just a tic in his cheek, that is. Livvie’s ‘catching up’ must have been very therapeutic, Julie thought.
“She’s an old friend,” he explained dismissively, to no-one in particular.
But not very old, Julie thought. Then she caught her breath as Nicholas came to sit on the bench beside her. At last he was coming to his senses!
“Can I ask you one question, Julie? Was it because you thought I was a simple gardener that you felt you had free license to trample on my feelings?”
She groaned. “Oh Nicholas, you know that isn’t true.”
“Then it seems I know very little,” he replied dryly. “I suggest you go home now before you freeze to death.”
She jumped up from the bench, her feet, in their light, strappy sandals smarting with the cold as she planted them solidly in front of him and gazed down at him. “My marriage was over long before I met you. It was a mistake that should never have happened. I was ashamed of it. It was like my career in a way. Passing your exams doesn’t automatically make you a good doctor in exactly the same way that signing a book in a registry office doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll have a good marriage, or even a proper one! Simon and I were never really husband and wife, we were just good friends.”
“Simon?” He nodded and repeated the name in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “Simple Simon? Simply making mistakes?”
Julie knew he was referring to her observation that sometimes people simply made mistakes in their choice of marriage partners, so the insult was double-edged. “You have no right to insult him.” she reproached quietly.
“No, of course not. He’s your husband.”
“No, Nicholas. Not anymore, but he is my friend.”
“Really? That’s what I thought I was. It seems you treat all your friends the same way. Badly! In my book, friends don’t cheat and lie. You should have told me instead of deliberately letting me believe you were someone…something else”
“How could I, knowing your views? I grew too attached to you.”
“All the more reason for telling the truth, don’t you think?”
“But I couldn’t bear to risk losing what we had.”
“We could never have anything built on a foundation of lies. If I asked your husband, would he tell me you were never really his wife? Would he betray you the way you betrayed him? Do you hate all men, Julie? Or is it that you simply don’t know the difference between right and wrong, or the truth and lying?”
She was as wounded by his tone as much as his words but still pressed on, her voice little more than a shaky whisper. “I don’t hate you, Nicholas. I love you.”
“I’ll leave your keys on the bench.” His voice sounded icy.
She backed away a pace and stared down at her feet in misery. Was there nothing she could say to move this man with whom she had shared so much love? Had she really damaged their relationship so irrevocably? How could he have changed so much, her tender lover? Had she done that to him?
She wanted a glimpse of the old Nicholas to reassure herself that he had existed and she hadn’t dreamed him up. This cold, hard stranger bore no resemblance to him.
When she raised her head, Nicholas was no longer there. She had told him she loved him and he had simply walked away. How much more humiliation could she take?
Professional Reviews
The Apple Tree - Lose Yourself in the Dream
I bought this book by accident as I was actually looking for something else and didn't check it properly, but I am so pleased that I did get it. Serendipity, a happy accident. 'There are no coincidences' as Lyn reminded me several times and I think she is quite right.
It didn't take me long to get wrapped up in the romance. The scenes were so perfectly set, the characters seemed so real and the emotions spilled out of it. I laughed with Julie and I cried with her, I felt her anger and also her guilt. Most of all I felt her love, and I want to find my own Nicholas. If I ever find anyone half as decent and loving as that man then I will be a happy woman.
Comment
The Apple Tree - So Much More than Just a Love Story
Julie has spent her life up to now trying to please other people. Her father, her sister and her husband have all manipulated her and she feels obliged to follow in their footsteps and become a doctor, even though she hates it.
After a very unhappy time in Saudi Arabia she uncharacteristically abandons her husband and returns to England. But her rebellion does not ensure her escape. She moves in with her powerful sister who does not allow her to veer from the plans she and their father have laid out for her.
Then she meets Nicholas. Nicholas is every girl's dream, but incredibly has never married. It is love at first sight.
In the delirium of first love, Julie fails to tell Nicholas about her failed marriage and the longer she leaves it, the more difficult it becomes to tell him. And Nicholas has very strong opinions on the sanctity of marriage.
At first sight this looks like just another version of the hackneyed plot - girl meets boy, they fall in love, there is a misunderstanding and the relationship fails, but all is well once the misunderstanding is cleared up and they all live happily ever after.
But the plot is far more complex than that. Julie, who has allowed other people to manage her all her life, is struggling against almost insurmountable odds to win the right to make her own decisions. Her sister, also trapped in family expectations cannot herself lead a normal life as she tries to fulfil the wishes of her dead father. Nicholas risks losing his chance of happiness through his stubborn refusal to relinquish his Victorian values.
There are some powerful moments in this story. When Julie discovers that her husband has returned to England suffering from a life-threatening disease, she puts aside all her other feelings to be with him. The little girl lost with no mind of her own emerges as a heroic figure.
I was captivated from the first. Lynette Sofras is a great storyteller. Her language flows easily. The plot is complex but utterly believable and her characters live and breathe. I found the whole deeply satisfying. A very mature work for a first novel.
I look forward to reading many more.
