Hilary Boyd’s novel, Thursdays In The Park, explores the realities of forbidden attraction and sexual passion at an age when we tend to assume people long for nothing more than to be tucked up in a Slanket watching the Antiques Roadshow, the Daily Mail reported.

After a creakingly slow start in paperback, its launch as an online ebook at the end of the summer has provided an astonishing transformation in its fortunes.