THE DISTANCE BEWEEN US is a love story, and also the story of two f a d e s , one of Scottish-Italian descent of three generations, the other just a single mother and her son. The families live thousands of miles apart. By the end, two of their members have fallen in love. I raced greedily through my first reading as though gorging on a box of chocolates. Then, sated, I felt somewhat ashamed. Had it really been that gripping?

Two weeks later I reread The Distance Between Us, trying to be more critical. I noticed the excessive use of adjectives - two or three when one, or even none, would have been better: 'Tall, hulking', 'serried rows of draped motorbikes'. There are also phrases, like 'slightly dismayed', where an