Books: Restoring Grace By Katie Fforde

ARROW pounds 6.99 (486pp)

Babies, interior design and country living: Katie Fforde's tenth romantic novel taps into several key nesting fantasies. It only takes the arrival of a man to upset the emotional feng shui. Ellie Summer is a young photographer who finds herself pregnant. Grace Souldley is a depressed divorcee, the owner of a large, but uncomfortable Georgian house. Ellie needs a home, and Grace needs a lodger. Instead of falling for each other over the Farrow and Ball paint pots, they call in the services of a Rayburn- installing Irish handy man. The promise of solid fuel proves irresistible.

Agas might be history, but Fforde's storytelling skills are reassuringly classic. EH