LIV Brooks is a woman whose life has suddenly and unexpectedly fallen apart.

Her husband of ten years has dumped her for a younger model, and a yoga teacher to boot.

Broken-hearted, she decides to sell her London home and move hundreds of miles up north to the Yorkshire Dales.

Her new home is in the fictional village of Nettlewick (Grassington) where her grandparents once lived and where she has fond memories of endless summer days, playing in the fields with her sister.

Her heart is not the only thing that needs mending. The cottage she falls upon is a tumbledown ‘project’; the builder she employs is a blast from her awkward teenage past - and with problems of his own.

Liv takes on a rescue dog, Harry, and gradually with his help her life is mended, and along the way, with Harry’s healing powers, other broken lives too.

One Good Thing is written by Alexandra Potter, writer of 12 other novels including best seller, Confessions of a Forty-Something F##k Up, currently being made into a television series in Hollywood starring Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) as Nell.

Bradford born Alexandra now lives in London, but is a regular visitor to Grassington where her mother lives, and this is her ‘love letter’ to the Dales.

So popular has the book been in Grassington, that a cream tea and meet the author event at the Stripey Badger book shop sold out.

One Good Thing was mostly written during the three national Covid lockdowns. Alexandra says she was lucky to be able to spend some of that time in the Dales, a part of the world ‘close to her heart.

“In many ways, this novel is a love letter to the Dales and to my dad, who would tell anyone that would listen that he lived in paradise. Nettlewick is a fictional village, but the dramatic landscape, beauty of the seasons, and warmth of the people is very real,” she says.

I didn’t expect to enjoy this, its not really my thing; but found myself unable to put it down. It’s heart warming, really nicely written and very clever.

I thoroughly recommend it, and to all those eligible young single men in the Dales, minding their own business, watch out, a fishing fleet of love lorn women with barrel loads of cash may well be heading your way.

One Good Thing, published by Macmillan, £14.99 for the hardback, is out now and is available at The Stripey Badger, as well as other good bookshops and online.