The Road to Nok

In 1999, Mark is thirty-two, five foot five, newly single after twelve years and he has just discovered the joys of using dial-up internet and the worlds female population within his reach. Over the next five years he flies to four continents, 17 countries, including Johannesburg, Moscow, Tokyo, Budapest, Indonesia, Borneo and Bangkok, with little more than a photograph and a misplaced sense of optimism. He spends Christmas in a garage, loses thirteen tulips on a Moscow trolleybus, is questioned by the FSB, almost gets kidnapped in Malaysia and every time that love comes within reach, he finds a reason to walk away. Then, in 2005, a shy Bangkok office worker comes down an escalator, five minutes late, and a trip to meet her mother turns out to be his own surprise wedding.

It will appeal to readers of Nick Hornby and Danny Wallace.

What sets the book apart is The Other Side of the Bedpost: after each affair, the woman gets to tell her own version of the date with Mark. They correct him, puncture him and sometimes reveal that they understood him far better than he understood himself, turning a catalogue of romantic disasters into a story about becoming the right man.