Kiss Him Goodbye by Victoria Routledge

Kate Craig has many pet hates but top of the list is London. Dirty, smelly, unfriendly and unreasonably expensive beer. She’s steered well clear for 21 years. But then her gorgeous Europhile boyfriend, Giles, invites her down to his palatial Chelsea house before he launches his international banking career: posh dinners out, cosy evenings in. It would be rude to say no. In fact, Kate’s week of high-class indulgence is so idyllic that she’s almost relieved when it turns horribly wrong. Giles’s training course is in Chicago. It’s four months long. And he wants her to wait in London for him. In a daze of anger, misery and deep subconscious disbelief, Kate suddenly finds herself cleaning her new cupboard in the first flat she sees. If it were just the filthy cupboards she had to contend with, she’d be OK. But there are flatmates: twins Dante and Cressida Grenfell have had a fairy-tale upbringing. Of the Grimm variety. He’s a permanently hungover layabout, she’s a control freak style queen. And the light relief is Harry, who gives upper crust blondes a bad name. All this and a bewildering new job, a sudden addiction to espressos, and the District Line – Kate’s sixteen Mondays are looking like a lifetime.