The next pair of characters is Ray and Archie.
They have been friends forever. Their families are farmers, and while Archie has taken over the family business, Ray is very different, enjoying life at the fullest. Yet, things take a turning for the worse when Ray is diagnosed leukaemia. There seems to be some hope at first, but then he relapses and needs to have a marrow implant. A donor is found, but the transplant doesn’t work, so Ray dies. Before dying, Ray told Archie that he had inscribed him to a competition, and Archie needed to swear that he would go through the competition. Archie humoured him as he had never won anything. Yet, a few days after Ray’s funeral, there is a letter, saying that he has won the competition. Actually, the prize is a journey on the Orient Express to Venice, but the catch is that the competition comes from a dating site, so the catch is that he and a woman, Emmie, who are apparently, a match should travel together. Archie is tempted to refuse the prize, but as he promised Ray, he decides to respect his friend’s last wishes. I wonder how Archie and Emmie will get on. From their profiles in the prologue of the book I have the hunch that they are different and have little in common, especially as it was Ray who wrote Archie’s profile, and I’m sure he must have shaped up some facts.
The last set of characters is Stephanie, Simon, Beth and Jamie. Stephanie and Simon have been an item for a while now; Simon is divorced as his wife Tanya left him for another man, leaving the children with him. Stephanie treats his children with kid gloves, because she knows that they see her as the woman who has taken their mother’s side. Stephanie is lovely, and the children are not nasty to her, quite the opposite. I think they like her. Now they are to spend some time together as a family, travelling on the Orient Express. A problem arises when, before leaving, the telephone rings and Simon lets the call go to the answering machine. It is Tanya, who gives her best wishes to her children, and then she adds that Simon left some tablets in her flat when he was there a couple of days ago. Stephanie is stunned, but then Simon assures her that he only dropped by because Tanya needed help with her tax forms, and he didn’t mention it because he didn’t think it was important. Stephanie accepts his explanation, but there is doubt nagging at her. She even wonders if Simon loves her as much as he loved Tanya. His words don’t reassure her as he says that he doesn’t know what he will do without her, and she thinks that this is not much for a love declaration. It is something he could even say to a housekeeper.
I already love these characters, and I am dying to know what will happen once they are on board the Orient Express.
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