Today iit’s my turn on the blog tour for Last Chance In Paris. I’m sharing an extract from the book with thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for providing the extract.

Blurb:

When her husband suggests a romantic break, Claire feels obliged to say yes but immediately regrets it. After the tragedy they’ve been through, how can one weekend in Paris save their marriage?

Claire and Ronan aren’t the only people on a make-or-break visit to the City of Love. There is a big-shot movie producer from Hollywood, full of regret for a life ill-lived; a student from Boston, torn between love and duty; a Ukrainian refugee struggling to protect her little sister; and an old woman from Dijon, hoping to be braver than she has ever had to be before.

When their lives briefly intertwine, something extraordinary happens…

Extract:
In the Air

Only an idiot would travel without a book. Only a fool, thought Claire, would prioritise clean knickers and kitten heels ahead of reading material in The Great 10kg Baggage Challenge. And yet, here she was, flipping from the front to the back of the flight safety card. It didn’t even have words, only line drawings
of people calmly flinging themselves out of planes.
A woman standing in the aisle tugged theatrically on an oxygen mask, its disconnected tubing dangling loose at
her hip.
‘If you are travelling with a child, secure your own mask first,’ she said. ‘Breathe normally.’
Watching from 6A, the window seat, Claire wondered how many parents obeyed that rule. When it came to it, when the plane was falling out of the sky, when alarms were ringing and
hearts exploding, how many parents put on their own mask first? And did putting on their own mask first make them a
better parent or a worse one?
‘In the event of an emergency, assume the brace position.’
The flight attendant was old school: sensible court shoes, lacquered chignon, make-up guaranteed to survive a sea land￾ing. Her name was Imelda, according to the name tag on her Kenmare green lapel. Imelda was not, Claire thought, a woman who would welcome philosophical questions from her audience.
‘Crew, arm doors and cross check.’

Claire turned away. Leaning her forehead against the aeroplane window, she stared into a fi lm of light mist. A persistent
boing boing sounded. Her stomach was drawn downwards as Aer Lingus flight EI822 Cork to Paris, with an unnerving shud￾der, powered up and up, and broke through to a lucid blue sky.
With her lips pressed closed, Claire inhaled through her nose for a count of four, held the breath for a count of seven, then let it all out in a whoosh. As far as she could tell, the exercise did nothing
at all to quell the jittery feelings rising inside her. She tried again.
It wasn’t, to be honest, that Claire wasn’t excited about a weekend in Paris. It was just that she hadn’t really wanted to
go anywhere. For weeks, she’d been ducking even the thought of their fifth wedding anniversary. She’d hoped for an escape route – the funeral of a distantly related centenarian would have been ideal – and then she felt guilty and ungrateful, and all the time she felt undeniably sad.

‘We deserve this,’ Ronan had said, the previous Sunday, when he handed her the printed-out tickets. ‘We haven’t had a break since . . .’ He looked down at his cornflakes and carried on,’for ages.’
Claire ignored his hesitation.
‘But these are for next Friday. I mean, that’s mad.’
‘Claire, we need this.’
She was so tired. That was the only thought in her head, but she couldn’t say it out loud, not again. He would run out of
patience one of these times. Honesty, as a policy, got boring.
She bit her bottom lip and looked up to the ceiling, as if that old trick ever made tears flow backwards. He was probably
right: they did need something, some sort of jolt to get them back on track. It would be more dangerous not to do it.

***

Last Chance In Paris is available from Amazon.

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