I loved Kirsty Greenwood's The Love of my Afterlife so much that I am going through her entire back catalogue at the moment.

This is a novella featuring Bess McKinley, a personal trainer who wants to make it big in London but can't even afford the rent for her tiny freezing flat, and she has just lost her job at the gym for reasons that I can't remember. 

So when she meets Henry Byron (!), romantic poet and YouTube content creator in the queue of a coffee shop and he insists that she is the woman who saved his life a month ago and buys her lunch, she seizes the day and not only becomes his personal trainer but also moves into his spare room faster than you can say "posh mansion in Notting Hill". The film really has a lot to answer for.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stand any of the main characters. Bess is delusional about making it in expensive London, and instead of asking her Dad for help like a normal person, the first thing she does to Henry is lie to him.

But Henry is worse. I can't stand those stupid influencers and content creators who start every post with "Hi, guys!" He is creepy with Bess and tries to drive an online narrative that she doesn't want, especially as she has a growing attraction to flatmate Auguste, who speaks perfect English apart from the fact that he apparently mixes up all his idioms. At the end we learn that Henry was even worse than we thought.

Added to that, characters say things like "Holland Park is so wonderful in the snow." When does London ever gets sufficient snow for anyone to say that?

Novellas always suffer from the fact that the shortness of the story doesn't allow for deep character analysis but some novellas cope better than others. This one doesn't. This fell flat into the snow for me.