She's Not Just Any Woman

She's Not Just Any Woman is a novel characterised by love, romance, and even tragedy. The novel is set in and around a northern university originally founded in the 1960s, but the action takes place in the early years of the twenty first century. This university cannot be said to have matured well, except for its Business School, generously funded by its original benefactor, and its leading lights are the four once young Foundation Professors, who built it up from scratch to become a famous institution. Two of these Professors - the Miles brothers - still combine a university career and a lucrative one in business with both marriage and an illicit love life. This level of activity is beginning to take its toll of one of them - Jed - but Eddie Miles still has the energy to do all of this, cause trouble in the wider university mainly with the help of former girlfriends; and also take on running a major publishing business in addition to that which he also runs on the side publishing soft porn with the aid of a mistress. His love life becomes even more complex when another mistress demands promotion to the role of wife, leading to a series of events involving him actually falling in love for the first time. The other Professors, David Robinson and Jeff Taylor, stick to conventional matrimony, though in Dave's case he is the target for other women; while, out of the blue, the death of his wife from an appalling illness wrecks Jeff's life and happiness. Jeff eventually finds love again in a world in which, like his friends, he learns that times have changed and in ways that they can no longer dictate.