THE SPY’S WIFE BY FIONA MCINTOSH

Widow Evie falls head over heels for the handsome and mysterious Roger. But with war on their doorstep, Roger is arrested for being a spy. In an effort to prove his innocence, Evie comes up with a plan that means moving to Germany and working as a British counter-spy…

North Yorkshire. Late spring, 1936. Evie Armstrong shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked up the hill, lifted her other hand to the person who had called her name, and waved. She recognised them as one of the villagers but wasn’t in the mood for talking to others; she never was when she was here talking to Ron.

“Anyway, I’m leaving you with some of the cherry blossom,” she continued her cheerful conversation. “It’s been out for a couple of weeks and was so late this year I wondered if it would ever come.”

She didn’t expect him to answer. Mercifully, the icy chill of the North Yorkshire winter was past and spring had begun to sprinkle its heart-warming, life-giving magic across the moors, urging all the sleeping perennials to wake and start stretching in readiness for their summer flowers. Colour would soon erupt across the moors, which would be dominated by a pink blanket of heather, but even the blue harebells and the elusive ruby-coloured cloudberry would be spotted any moment.

Life. It was moving ahead without her. As much as she enjoyed these private times with Ron, she was not so lost in her memories that she could believe he felt the land warming around him.

The blossom had come and gone for six seasons since Evie had held him for the last time. As daunting as that recollection was, it was fading, and that in itself was troubling. What if she lost that too? She could remember Ron’s voice, and the colour of his middle finger slightly stained with nicotine; she could even remember his cheerful whistle, but she’d begun to lose the sound of his voice. When had that memory started to fade? There had been a time when his absence was so keen that she could have sworn he was lying next to her, could still sense the length of his body against her in bed, long after he had died.

Edited extract from The Spy’s Wife by Fiona Mcintosh (Penguin Australia, $32.99) out now.