Harriet Evans
A Hopeless Romantic

"It can't work, Nick. Can't you see? You're part of this."

Laura waved her arms around her. "The house, the history, all of your family. All of it. It's massive. And you're trying to pretend it doesn't matter, but it does, Nick."

He folded her hands into his, like he always did. "Laura. If I can't have a normal life outside of it, I'm doomed. Of course all this is important to me. But there are other things, too," he said, and he leaned forward and kissed her.

She pulled away from him.

Nick looked at her in disbelief. "You're actually going to throw this all away, because you're an inverted snob," he said angrily. "You're a coward," he said, his voice harsh.

"If you like," said Laura. Her hands were shaking as she unlocked the car door.

"You know, I actually thought I might be falling in love with you," he said quietly. He turned and walked toward the house, and didn't turn back once.

Turn the page to read rave reviews for
A Hopeless Romanticby Harriet Evans!

"Where's all the passion, romance, and comedy we love gone? Enter Harriet Evans and not before time."

-Heat

Praise for Harriet Evans and
A HOPELESS ROMANTIC

"A delicious romcom, surprisingly believable."

-Marie Claire

"Hard to resist."

-Elle

"Harriet Evans has scored another winner with her second novel...will warm you up like brandy on a winter's night.... Witty, entertaining, self-reflective, and full of characters you'll grow to love."

-Heat

"An entertaining page-turner."

-Closer

"Superior romcom with heart and soul."

-Bella


GOING HOME

"Fabulous.... I loved it."

-Sophie Kinsella

"A joy from start to finish-sharp, funny, and modern as well as warm, cuddly, and nostalgic."

-Fiona Walker

"A brilliant debut novel.... A delightful romantic comedy with self-effacing humor and witty dialogue."

-Romantic Times

"A lovely, funny heart-warmer.... Evans's heightened comic style and lovable characters make it effortlessly readable."

-Marie Claire

"An engaging first-person recounting of a watershed six months in one young woman's life."

-Booklist

Also by Harriet Evans

going home



DOWNTOWN PRESS
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020


This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by Harriet Evans

Originally published in Great Britain in 2006 by HarperCollinsPublishers

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

DOWNTOWN PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Harriet, 1974-
A hopeless romantic / Harriet Evans.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-7153-7
ISBN-10: 1-4165-7153-1
1. Single women-Fiction. 2. Vacations-England-Norfolk-Fiction. 3. Truthfulness and falsehood-Fiction. I. Title.
PR6105.V347H67 2007
823'.92-dc22

2007015142

Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com

For the magnificent specimen,

my mother, Linda. With all my love.

acknowledgments

With many thanks to Kim Witherspoon, David Forner, Beth Davey, and all at Inkwell. No thanks to David for revealing theDesperate Housewives finale secret, though. And a huge thank-you to Louise Burke and all my friends at Pocket, especially Maggie Crawford.

How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had been thus practicing on herself, and living under!-The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart!-she sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery-in every place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly.

-Emma,Jane Austen

part one

chapter one

Laura Foster was a hopeless romantic. Her best friend, Jo, said it was her greatest flaw, and at the same time her most endearing trait, because it was the thing that most frequently got her into trouble, and yet falling in love was like a drug to her. Having a crush, daydreaming about someone, feeling her heart race when she saw a certain man walk toward her-she thrived on all of it, and was disastrously, helplessly, hopelessly incapable of seeing when it was wrong. Everyone has a blind spot. With Laura, it was as if she had a blind heart.