A Seaside Affair: A heartwarming, gripping read from the Top Ten bestseller
You will love this wonderfully warm and witty novel from Fern Britton, the Sunday Times bestselling novelist.When the residents of the Cornish seaside town of Trevay discover that their much-loved theatre is about to be taken over by coffee chain, Café au Lait, they are up in arms. It is up to Penny Leighton, hotshot producer and now happily married Cornish resident, to come up with a rescue plan. Armed with only her mobile phone and her contacts book, she starts to pull in some serious favours.The town is soon deluged by actors, all keen to show their support and take part in a charity season at the theatre. One of the arrivals is Jess Tate, girlfriend to TV heartthrob Ryan Hearst. His career is on the rise while hers remains resolutely in the doldrums. But when opportunity comes calling, it isn’t just her career prospects that are about to change. Trevay is about to put on the show of its life – but can the villagers, and Jess, hold on to the thing they love the most?Pendruggan: A Cornish Village with secrets at its heart
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Fern Britton 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Illustration © Carrie May
Author photograph © Neil Cooper
Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007468560
Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007468584
Version: 2018-09-20
To Harry and your exciting future with all my love, Mum xx
Contents
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Two
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Read an extract from Good Catch
By the same author
‘You should’ve woken me, silly.’ Ryan Hearst ambled into the sunny kitchen, scratching himself somewhere inside his rumpled boxer shorts.
His girlfriend, Jess Tate, glanced up from reading the paper at the kitchen table and allowed her eyebrows to wrinkle briefly in distaste.
Ryan bent down and gave her a kiss on her freckled nose. A small gesture he was prone to, which always managed to irritate her.
‘What’s for breakfast?’ He stretched out his muscular arms, then straightened up and yawned. His armpits gave off an unpleasant odour.
Jess pushed up her reading specs, sweeping her loose brown curls off her face, and gave him what she hoped was a relaxed smile. ‘If your fans could see you now …’
‘Yeah, don’t tell them. Anyway, baby, I’m all yours.’ He placed his hands either side of her head and thrust his hips and crotch towards her, mimicking a male stripper. She pulled a face and turned away. ‘You pong. Go and have a shower and I’ll make something to eat.’
‘You love me, baby, you know you do.’ He scratched his chest and yawned again. ‘I’ve missed you, Jess. I really have.’
She looked into his dark, almond-shaped eyes, even more sexy with the tanned creases of crow’s feet at their edges.
‘Yes, and I’ve missed you,’ she murmured, closing her eyes and forming her full lips into a shape for kissing – but he was already on his way to the bathroom.
With a sigh she got up and made her way to the fridge. There were plenty of eggs, a slab of cheese and some mushrooms. Ryan hadn’t touched a carbohydrate since the third person in their relationship, Cosmo Venini, had entered their lives.
‘Will an omelette do you?’ she called. But he couldn’t hear her over the sound of the shower.
Two pairs of beady eyes popped up over the dog basket next to the dishwasher.
Jess bent down to tickle a brace of plump tummies. ‘Daddy’s home, girls.’
Elsie and Ethel were miniature dachshund sisters. Ryan had brought them home nine months ago, the day he had landed the title role in Venini, a TV series about the exploits of a globe-trotting classical conductor who moonlights as an MI5 agent. The show had been an overnight success and as a result the tabloids had given Ryan the dubious honour of dubbing him ‘the thinking woman’s brioche’.
Jess recalled that cold January afternoon when he’d poked his head round the living room door, the smell of frosty air clinging to him. She was huddled on the sofa in front of the TV, swaddled from head to toe in their duvet to combat the lack of heating, watching Deal or No Deal and wondering whether she should apply to be a contestant in the hope of bringing home some prize money. One look at Ryan’s face told her his audition had been successful.
