Andrew Ffrench finds himself enjoying a tale of sex oop North in our Book of the Month.

I HAVEN’T read any novels by this best-selling author before, so I didn’t quite know what to expect.

The pink cover, which I gather the author helped to design, led me to believe that I would be experiencing some fairly fluffy chick lit.

But I was pleasantly surprised. North's writing style is much more literary than the cover led me to expect, and the plot is not the usual diet of sex and shopping.

Single mum Tess and her daughter Em are living in a flat in North London and not really enjoying life.

Tess, a manicurist, is getting behind with the rent and the landlord is starting to hassle her, so she looks for an escape route.

The way out is provided by an ad in a Teesside property magazine which Tess finds on the train.

The ad is advertising for a housesitter in Saltburn and Tess rings up the owner and talks herself into the job.

Joe, the owner of the rambling Victorian house in Saltburn, builds bridges all over the world for a living, so he needs someone to look after the property when he is away.

He likes a quiet life, and is not really looking for anyone to rock the boat, but he finds himself quite attracted to Tess.

This is the relatively shaky foundation for North’s latest novel, but I was sufficiently intrigued to read on.

Within four chapters I was hooked, and wanted to know more about Tess and Joe’s lives up until that point, and whether or not they would get together.

North switches between the present tense and the past tense at some points in the story, which I found a little bit distracting, but on the whole I enjoyed North’s writing style.

Publisher HarperCollins is investing a large amount in promoting the paperback, including bus posters on more than 150 bus routes, and posters on the Underground.

Considering one of the main locations is Saltburn, it might be worth putting a few ads up in Middlesbrough too.

North had clearly done some thorough research on different locations in the novel, particularly Saltburn-by-the-Sea, and on bridge-building, but she never lets this get in the way of the plot, and I found the 482 pages turning quickly.

North has a reputation for writing steamy sex scenes and those picking up Secrets are unlikely to be disappointed.

The paperback comes with a number of ‘exclusive’ extras, including interesting old pictures of Teesside bridges.

Secrets by Freya North is published by HarperCollins, price £6.99.

THE AUTHOR: FREYA North gave up a PhD to write her first novel, Sally, in 1991.

She went on the dole and did a number of temporary jobs to support her writing career. In 1995, she sent three chapters of Sally to a literary agent and five publishers entered a bidding war for her book.

Her next books, including Love Rules, Home Truths, and Pillow Talk, have all been bestsellers.

Freya won the Romantic Novel of the Year award last year for Pillow Talk.

The mother-of-two lives in London with her family. She writes on her Apple laptop in her local library and names Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe as one of her favourite books.

She tells her readers: “I don’t plan my novels. I do a few months of research and then I simply sit down, start with chapter one and trust that the characters will show me what happens and when.

“I’ve had periods when I’ve felt so drained or simply tired that I’ve sat in the library thinking shall I just nip off to Brent Cross shopping centre for a couple of hours?

“But actually, I'm pretty disciplined – you just have to knuckle down and squeeze out one word after another.

“Strong coffee, Red Bull and Skittles help, it must be said.”