Heartbreak Hotel

Sometimes a character in an earlier book simply refuses to go away, hanging around long after the party’s over. Buffy, the boozy old actor in “The Ex-Wives”, was one of these. So I wrote him another story, this time set in Wales. I’d fallen in love with a man who lived in the Welsh borders and wanted to write about his town. I’d also had the idea for a money-making scheme which Buffy, being a wily old fox, dreams up. Like “The Best Exotic Marigold”, this novel is set in a hotel – but wetter and even more ramshackle than the one in India. I had fantastic fun writing it; by this time I knew Buffy so well that he practically wrote it himself. Here’s the plot:

When retired actor Buffy decides to up sticks from London and move to rural Wales, he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for. In possession of a run-down b&b that leans more towards the shabby than the chic and is miles from anywhere, he realizes he needs to fill the beds – and fast.

Enter his master plan of ‘Courses for Divorces’ and a motley collection of guests: Harold, whose wife has run off with a younger woman; Amy, who’s been dumped by her weedy boyfriend and Andy, the hypochondriac postman whose girlfriend has become too much for him to handle.