Jules Preston - The Map of Us - The most uplifting and unmissable feel good romance of 2018!

2 years ago (too)

2 years ago (still)

the marriage report

clarity

wasps

something about squirrels

G.I.T.S.

handbags

blue

sand

N

boots

oversight

name

kissed

distance of paper

more sofa

half

dreams

sorry

rainbow

tortoise

view

64.726%

same

5 things about washing machines

free coffee

agreement

more sand

NE

date night

special friend

title

volume one

praise for Galbraith’s Boot

drawn

5 things about the garden

music question

Lazy Mo

blueberry

reminder

coincidence

5 things about Jack

yes

new arrivals

trumps

start

party

tired

date night again

5 things about Grace

7 letters to Grace

E

37 words

sandwich

roses

royalty

28 minutes

finished

calibrating

brushstrokes

late

promises

5 things about Matt’s mother

hard to tell

impulsive

top bunk

where Matt was

spoilage

a ‘friend’

in-flight

south and a little west

strangers

SE

path

closer

closer still

gift

doors

tablecloth

true

output

68%

ex

couch surfing

5 things about Katherine

list

cluck

olives

3rd

layers

silence

S

walls

map

home

petunias

lucky

snoring

company

wonderful

5 things about my father

old flame

art school

bijou

view

colour

overlap

pie

blip

perspective

transformation

twit

SW

extortion

4lb 11oz

Juniper

5 things about the Norths

£1,000

important

rivers

unexpected

matches

cook

paintbrush

turning

more twit

lobster

W

witch

5 things about Abigail North

falling

awry

can’t

defined

5 things about Owen

the proposal

Ruth Pennywheal’s reply

drawer

5 things about my mother

October

tide

blub

swim

him

deep end

reservations

whisk

decision

glass

NW

cake

found

lost again

wish

broken

truth

when

eventually

mistake

soon

score

delirious

toast

not Katherine

perfect

tick tick tick

5 things about Daniel’s father

sore feet

seal

more cake

family

gloves

resilient

always

5 things that changed

tie

the Matilda Eastleigh Compatibility Index

maybe ten

merit

dark road

nice

imagine

jazz

waiting

tap water

extra

next?

lawnmower

opening

fault

errands

undone

wanted

the Matilda Eastleigh Compatibility Index

folly

ice cream

couldn’t

sketches

wheelbarrow

‘Rooks Wood to Coldbank Ruins’

3 miles

full circle

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Numbers are a poor measure of love.

Millicent Fenwick

Mathematician 1970-

Violet North could not walk far. She had a pleasing enough disposition and an inquiring mind, but she had lost the use of her legs as a child. Polio was the cause. She was now twenty-six years of age and not expected to marry. She had other complications from her childhood illness that meant she seldom left her home without the help of company. As she was not often seen outside, there were precious few who she could call upon for such assistance.

Her family had lately abandoned her in a house with several staircases and a large garden in the hope that she would fall and die as quickly and conveniently as possible. They had told her as much when they left. She had been a burden to them for long enough. Violet could not walk far, but she was twenty-six and had her own house with a large garden and decided to be as inconvenient as possible. She did a grand job.

Violet North had many interests beyond the confines of the front parlour in the summer and the study in the winter. She sent off for maps and globes of the world and invited those she knew to send her postcards from the places they had been. It did not matter where. Places that she would never see fascinated her. She read travelogues and the biographies of great explorers. For her, climbing the stairs to the third floor was an exhausting expedition, fraught with unknown dangers.

A photograph of the nearest railway station, no more than three miles away, was a particular delight to her. She knew she would never see it in person. Even if she could somehow surmount all the difficulties of getting there alone, how could she buy a ticket? She had no destination. Violet knew no one she could visit by train.

To occupy her inquiring mind and her passion for places that would forever be a mystery to her, she invented an explorer and a place for them to explore and wrote about their adventures on a Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter that she borrowed from a neighbour. It was turquoise blue, and the ‘e’ often stuck.

The place that she invented looked very much like love.

I have seen it.

Violet North was my grandmother. And yes, that is where the journey to this started. Right there.

‘Where do you think we went wrong?’ Matt said.

‘10.37am, April 22nd,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said.

He put his glass down on the table and stared absently out of the window. A dog was barking at a paper bag somersaulting down the January street. I felt responsible. Not for the paper bag or the barking dog. I felt responsible because the absence that we both felt was my fault.

Sometimes people don’t want simple answers. Most of the time, in fact. They say they do, but they don’t. Not really. My soon-to-be ex-husband didn’t. Not like that. Not right then. I could see him trying to compute the information. He was struggling. It was all too clinical. Too precise.

10.37am. The exact moment when our marriage fell apart. Or started to. Or finally shattered into a million unrecognisable pieces. He wanted something else. Something vague and meaningless.