Falling for a British bloke

Chapter 1 - uncommon acquaintances

March 2014

Sarah smiled as she lay on the bed in her hotel room in Berlin, relaxing and just staring at the ceiling. So this is it about being a successful writer? I could get used to it... She never would have dreamt about how things had developed in the last 15 months. Closing her eyes she remembered the turn of events that brought her there.

..ooOOoo..

One and a half year ago, her life was quite a mess. She just had split up with her long-term boyfriend after she found out he was cheating on her with a colleague. It was rather nasty, many weeks of discovering more and more details of his betrayal and fights that left her devastated, followed by uncomfortable silence. Nothing was left to be said and finally she moved back to her mother's home. She buried herself in work, work she didn't really like anymore, not the technical stuff she studied and graduated in, but the politics of the company she got involved with more and more. After work she went to see her horses, she would ride through the countryside for hours, letting her mind dwell upon how her existence became so numb - even befor she split up with Andy. She was desperate to change that, but she didn't know how.

Some weeks before christmas her beloved aunt passed away. Another blow to Sarah's already darkened mood, as it was completely unexpected. The medics said it was a stroke, she managed to call an ambulance right after the stroke occured, but when help arrived at her house that was quite far away from the next village and in the middle of nowhere, she had died of a cerebral haemorrage. Sarah felt overwhelming sadness creeping in her body, it was her only aunt and as the woman had had no children of her own she really spoiled her when she spent her holidays in the little house in the woods when she was younger. After finishing school and going to university her visits to her aunt became more infrequent and with grief she realized that they had only met twice since she started working after her graduation. An unexpected turn in events occured when they found out that Sarah's aunt left a will in which she bequeathed Sarah all of her possessions, including the little house in the woods. Dumbstruck at first, Sarah detected later that this could be the chance to change her life she was longing for.

So, after some time of pondering she quit her job and moved to her aunt's house. She found out that her heritage included a not too small amount of money, enough to make a living for more than a year she supposed, and she decided to write the book that she was dreaming about for years now. Her mother was quite upset about Sarah's decision, giving up a secure job with a regular income and doing something as unreasonable as trying to be a writer. But Sarah was determined and so her mum found that there was no use in argueing with her.

As the months passed, Sarah grew more and more content with her new life. She took her horses with her to the house where they could live in a shed that was already built there and graze on the huge meadows surrounding the house. She decided to get a few angora rabbits to use their wool and craft knitted and woven items to sell on local arts and crafts markets - another passion of her that she neglected far too long. Her book was doing quite well, she had already sent an exposé and some pages as an extract to some publishers and she was just finishing the last chapters when a smaller but not entirely unknown publishing house agreed to take her book in their selection.

What she didn't expect was that she would find her book upon the top ten bestselling German fantasy novels towards the end of the year and to earn the "Newcomer of the Year" award with it. This award opened the door to join the stall of her publisher at the FantasyCon in Berlin in 2014. That was a reason to celebrate, so she took some of her friends to town where they first went to the cinema to see the second part of "The Hobbit" and then to a club where they partied until the early morning. Driving home by car Sarah didn't drink any alcohol save a glass of sparkling wine to toast her success, so her hangover was not too bad, but she decided to take a nap in the afternoon as she really slept too little the night before - having animals to care for she couldn't afford to sleep late in the morning. When she dozed away she dreamt about the movie they saw last night and exspecially the mezmerizing blue eyes of her favourite dwarf...