Exclusive Extract: Half The World Away by Rebecca Banks

Half The World Away is the debut novel from Rebecca Banks.

Rebecca owns a boutique public relations agency specialising in sports and entertainment and has 20 years of experience in PR and events.

She is also a freelance journalist. For over a decade she has written features from celebrity interviews and human profile pieces to motoring and travel reviews. Half the World Away is her debut novel.

Divorced and keeping a heart-breaking secret, Abbie Potter is sleep-walking through her life as a publicist at a London football club. She seems to spend more time covering their scandals than celebrating their wins, and has had enough. Though she’s already prepared for a fresh start, some shocking news pushes her to take an opportunity even further from home – in Salt Lake City.

The first morning of her new life, Abbie bumps into Kyle Miller. He’s persistent, and Abbie’s more than intrigued by him. Everything else seems to fit into place too: she has a fulfilling job, is on a journey of self-rediscovery, and has revived her love of music thanks to a new-found friendship.

She can’t risk losing what she’s built for herself, but how can she stop it from slipping through her fingers without shattering the façade she hides behind?

Half the World Way is a fantastic debut and makes us eager to read more from Rebecca. It’s full of humour, romance and will have you laughing out loud in parts. It’s an extremely well-written story that pulls on your heartstrings and makes you invest and believe in the main character Abbie. Even covering a very serious subject is done with care and sensitivity. It’s one of those stories that you will lend your friends and then beg for it back, as it feels warm and comforting every time you re-read it.

Read on for an exclusive sneak peek of the book.

Divorced and keeping a heart-breaking secret, Abbie Potter is sleep-walking through her life as a publicist at a London football club. She seems to spend more time covering their scandals than celebrating their wins, and has had enough. Though she’s already prepared for a fresh start, some shocking news pushes her to take an opportunity even further from home – in Salt Lake City.

There was no catalyst for their breakup that she could pinpoint. They hadn’t been arguing. She had still loved him, and he seemed to feel the same.

One day he just told her he was leaving. That he was sorry but he couldn’t be in a relationship at that moment. He’d never given her the decency of a conversation for ‘closure’ but she was pretty sure he felt they’d settled down too young and didn’t want to be tied down anymore. He said she could stay in their riverfront apartment for a while and he would stay with a friend, but she needed to get away from the daily reminders of their five years together, four of them married. She searched for a place as different to Josh’s city pad as she could find and was out within days, living with a Swedish painter and decorator and a Lebanese chef for a few weeks until she found something more permanent.

Twenty-seven years old and heading for divorce. She had been ashamed.

A year later she heard on the grapevine that he was engaged to someone else, and his profile picture on Facebook now showed him happily walking under a shower of confetti next to a beautiful blonde in a wedding gown.

She knew it was time to move on and she knew she couldn’t go back, but it hurt like hell to feel like you weren’t good enough, yet the next girl to come along was. They’d now taken their relationship a step further than Abbie and Josh ever did, and the thought made her close her eyes and curl up in the foetal position. He had found someone new who was good enough to be the mother of his children.

She knew she had to find a way to make the pain stop.

You can get a copy of Half The World Away, here.

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