Intriguing opening -- good start.

Oh, I take this back, because I've just read the continuation of the other line, where the handsome happily married man turns up again. Conflict! Yes! Good! Put the two story lines together again!

That'll teach me to do a bit more reading before I post a comment. Sorry -- put it down to the fact that I'm new on mashing.

That's a cunning bit of work -- neat. But is it necessarily a good thing to work the storylines together? It eliminates the conflict, and I don't think that is a good thing.

Stories need conflict, and there have been a few promising conflicts on the way in this line, such as:
-- the protagonist's loneliness,
-- whether or not she's mad hearing plants and cats,
-- a handsome (and possibly married) stranger and what she might do about it.

Any, or all, of these would do very well as a plot driver. But the way the other line is going, all we're going to have is two lonely people getting together, with the only twist being that Cupid is played by a pot of ivy.

"Girl meets Boy: the end" Hmm...

This is the definition from the Historical Novel Society: www.historicalnovelsociety.org :
"To be deemed historical (in our sense), a novel must have been written at least fifty years after the events described, or have been written by someone who was not alive at the time of those events (who therefore approaches them only by research)."

So the boundary of what counts as historical fiction edges forward year by year. A book written during the Second World War or shortly afterwards doesn't count as historical fiction: a book written nowadays about the Second World War does.

As for quality of either writing or historical research, this is a pretty inclusive definition, which encompasses everything from Regency Romance to War and Peace.

Great idea, and a good cure for writer's block.

You most definitely have something to say, and you say it well.

This is a great start. You have established your main character and her dire situation clearly and concisely, and your last line is a good cliff-hanger.

Only one minor point (and it is very minor, and from now on it's very easy to fix when you're editing): watch your pronouns. Mostly you use "she" but sometimes you switch to "I". Decide on one, and stick to it.

I'm looking forward to reading what happens next.

What do you think the best revenge would be in such a case? My answer is in the continuation of this story, but I'd be interested to see other people's.

Is this ending a bit too cosy? I'd welcome other people's opinions.

Thanks for the welcome, and for your comments about the characters. It's an example of the difference between "showing" and "telling". I was aiming to show Amanda's character, while getting her to tell the reader about Jack's.

Very good build-up of the main character, and that's a great paragraph to end this chapter on, that makes me really want to continue and find out more.