I don't know why I'm writing this. It's not like anybody's going to read it. At least, nobody who cares about the fact that I'm a desparate, dying, 23-year-old human being who's just had the whole of history taken away from her.

To whoever's out there, to whatever's left, this is the way things were, just before the end. This is the story about the last days of London, about murder and love and waking up in the ruins, about all the people buried in the wreckage...

I'm lying, obviously. This is my story. This is what I was doing, when October the twelfth came. Because, let's face it, I'm the only one who really matters.

I'm the only one who got out alive.

Lawrence Miles wrote the (acclaimed) New Adventures Christmas on a Rational Planet and Down, although he claims that Dead Romance is his most 'complex and challenging' work yet. This isn't really the kind of thing his publishers feel he should be telling people.