A heartfelt look at motherhood and romance

IT'S A made-for-the-movies beginning. On a sunny day in 2013 in London's Victoria Park, a British man's young daughter jumps into a pond to see the ducks up close and ends up face down in the water.

- KARIN TANABE

While he's got his back turned, she has stopped moving, her coat floating around her. Who should notice but Coralie Bower, an attractive, single 29-year-old, who recently moved to Britain from Australia.

She jumps in and saves the girl without hesitation. Then she slips away, forcing the girl's father to search every cafe in the area so that he can show his gratitude. Think of chasing Cinderella, but replace the glass slipper with a latte.

That's the beginning of Consider Yourself Kissed, Australian writer Jessica Stanley's sophomore novel, and it's a perfect set-up for a romantic comedy of errors.

The dad in question, Adam Whiteman, is charming and intelligent with the good looks of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy minus a few inches in height. He's a great father to 4-year-old Zora, amicably divorced, a rising-star political journalist and a pro-level conversationalist.

As for Zora, she's impish and sweet; one of her first questions to Coralie: "Are pigs waterproof?"

Adam and Coralie's conversation turns into a date and their banter is enviably good. Coralie is a copywriter with novelist dreams and a complicated family and relationship history back in Australia. Adam writes political news and hosts a podcast "regularly in the top twelve, or fifteen, in the News bit of UK iTunes."

He also likes to give a modest shrug and admit he does "a bit of ... Broadcast." He's ambitious, just the right amount of intellectual, and he's completely taken by Coralie.