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Ian Proud was Head of Political Section at the British Embassy in Bangkok when the Boxing Day tsunami struck in 2004. He was the first to leave the embassy with the Ambassador on a 900 km drive to the disaster zone and remained there initially for thirteen days before his first break. Following this he continued to work on disaster recovery in southern Thailand on a permanent basis through the months that followed.
Ian Proud was a member of His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. During that time, he was one of the Foreign Office’s most accomplished crisis experts and was Chair of the Crisis Committee at the British Embassy in Moscow when the Salisbury nerve agent attack happened in March 2018. He posts international relations articles and podcasts from his Substack page, The Peacemonger.
From friends to lovers, fate always conspired to drive Hatty and Monty apart...
High-flier Hatty has been hurt before and hopes that career success in New York is a safer bet than opening her heart. But when she distances herself from Monty, she realises he might be her soul mate.
Monty has loved Hatty from the start and yearns for a life with her. When he finds himself spiraling in the aftermath of the devastating tsunami, he is consumed by the search for his missing father and pushes her away.
When they find their way back to each other, they must confront the question:
Can true love endure the worst and still bloom, or is some hurt too deep to heal?
