Crossing Borders

Caroline Winslow is a graduate in Economics, who has so far failed to fulfill her potential: to the shock of friends and family she was convicted of shoplifting the day before her final exams. Seemingly happy to 'sit out' her own life, she finds a menial job in a small export firm in London. But fate has in mind other plans for Caroline, and within a few short months she is involved in a passionate affair with an immigrant doctor from Romania and on her way to becoming an unwilling accomplice in a dangerous game. Unexpectedly invited on a business trip to Romania by her boss, Jennifer, the action takes us to that part of Europe still painfully emerging from the grip of Communism. It is here that the tables start to turn, and an innocent trip motivated by personal curiosity starts to become something sinister. While the relationship with her boss and a travel companion has an acceptably professional tone at the beginning of the journey, Caroline increasingly finds herself in the position of subordinate. Unexpectedly, Jennifer takes on a much more dominant, and eventually menacing role. Although a number of unexplained anomalies create a sense of disaster about to happen, Caroline starts to play an internal game of denial against her own instincts: not trusting herself enough to admit her own fears and not quite brave enough to confront Jennifer out-right. 'Crossing Borders' is a novel about how an ordinary girl can be unwittingly led to disaster when the weaknesses of her own character are so cunningly manipulated by another. It is also a story about the desire to be loved and the difficult choices we must make in life. In order to keep the man she loves, Caroline must cross not only the physical and cultural borders which separate countries and peoples; she must traverse the territories of fear and human weakness.