Come Back to Me - Sara Foster (2010)

Alex comes face-to-face with his disturbing past when he and his wife, Chloe, go on a restaurant date. Chloe's lawyer colleague, Mark, introduces his date Julia, but the woman abruptly leaves the table, never to return. It appears that she knows Alex but he isn't about to shed any light on their past relationship - not even to Chloe. As Chloe deals with a largely absent husband and Mark - her ex - showing renewed interest, she finds she's facing another life-changing development. This is a very promising debut, with a storyline teeming with slowly revealed secrets and unexpected turns. It's told from each character's perspective, and is set between London and Perth. Extra points to anyone guessing the final twist.

Sara Foster's debut novel Come Back to Me delves into complicated relationships and asks the question: Do you have to honour a promise you made in the past if it means losing all that you have now? The summary says: "When Mark introduces his date, Julia, to Chloe and her husband at a London restaurant, it's obvious something is very, very wrong. Alex and Julia pretend not to know each other but the shocked expressions on their faces tell another story. As the mystery of Julia's identity unravels, a terrible tragedy from 10 years ago gradually comes to light. While Chloe struggles with a secret of her own, Alex has to decide whether he should take Julia back to Australia to try to lay the past to rest, when doing so will risk all he has with the wife he loves. And Julia must decide whether to finally confront Alex with the whole truth about what happened back then." Foster, a freelance book editor, was born in England but now lives in Western Australia. Come Back to Me, set in both London and Perth, is out in February.

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