The Trouble with Moving On

If you have reached this page, you have probably worked out by now that this is not a real matchmaking site—so, unfortunately, I cannot promise to find you the love of your life.

What I can do is introduce you to Benjamin Templeton, the fifty-six-year-old widower at the heart of my novella, The Trouble with Moving On.

Two years after losing his beloved wife, Maggie, Benjamin is perfectly content with his life—or at least, that is what he keeps telling everyone. He still lives in the home they shared, surrounded by her photographs, her belongings and the memories of their life together. As far as Benjamin is concerned, he isn't lonely, he doesn't need rescuing, and he certainly doesn't need another woman in his life.

His family, however, has other ideas.

With the enthusiastic interference of his adult son and daughter-in-law, Benjamin suddenly finds himself thrust into the bewildering world of blind dates, pub encounters and online matchmaking, where complete strangers begin liking, winking at and, most alarmingly, poking him.

Benjamin isn't entirely sure what being poked means, but he is fairly certain he doesn't want to poke anyone back.

What follows is a series of hilarious, awkward and occasionally disastrous encounters with women who convince Benjamin that remaining single may be one of the wisest decisions he has ever made.

Then he walks into a local shoe shop and meets Lucinda Matthews.

Lucinda is thirty-eight—eighteen years younger than Benjamin—and she is nothing like Maggie.

Except, somehow, she is.

There are little things about her that remind Benjamin of the woman he loved for so many years: the way she listens, the kindness she shows others, the warmth in her smile and the ability to make ordinary moments feel important. Yet Lucinda is very much her own woman—spontaneous where Maggie was organised, adventurous where Maggie preferred routine, and determined to look towards tomorrow while Benjamin is still holding tightly to yesterday.

And that creates a problem Benjamin never expected to face.

Because falling in love with Lucinda would mean accepting that his life with Maggie is truly over.

Told with warmth, humour and some deeply poignant moments, The Trouble with Moving On follows Benjamin through the five stages of grief as he slowly discovers that moving forward does not mean leaving the person you loved behind.

Sometimes, the person we lose remains part of us forever.

And sometimes, loving them is what eventually gives us the courage to open our hearts again.

So, no—this isn't a real matchmaking site.

But perhaps it is a story about the most difficult match any of us can make:

the life we once had with the life that is still waiting for us.