Montenegro the Beautiful

I never meant to reinvent my life. I just liked the sound of “Montenegro.”

What was meant to be a three-night stay turned into five months that changed everything.

Fresh from selling my home in England on nothing but intuition, I arrived in this small Balkan country days before the world shut its borders. Two nights in, my father died. I mourned him fully — and then, just as quickly, found my footing again, choosing to honour him by stepping forward into the strange new life in front of me, rather than staying stuck in the loss.

What I found, instead of solitude, was family. Jelena and Dara, the women whose home I was renting, folded me into their lives: morning coffee on the lawn, secondhand clothes when mine didn’t suit the heat, a fire lit for me every night because I couldn’t quite trust myself to build one without it getting out of control.

This is a story about what happens when your plans collapse and somehow, impossibly, life gets better. Funny, unflinching, and more honest than most memoirs dare.

The first book in The Balkans Trilogy.

“The story flows very well and I wanted to keep turning each page.” — Amazon review

“None of the narcissism of Eat, Pray, Love… the author makes every effort to endear herself to the locals and adapt to the local culture.” — Amazon review.