Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles: The Driftwood Inn
For Maisie Samson, this Christmas is going to be different. After years working in a busy Cornish pub, she’s moved back to quiet Gull Island where she grew up, to help her parents run the family inn.But even though she can’t wait for the festive season to arrive, Maisie cannot shake the memories of what happened to her last Christmas – the day she lost everything. She keeps herself busy, setting up the tree and hanging mistletoe ready for her first proper family Christmas in years.Until a new arrival to the island walks into her bar and changes everything. Australian backpacker Patrick is looking for a job for the low season. When Maisie takes him on, she doesn’t expect him to last the week, but to her surprise Patrick is the perfect fit. Charming and handsome, could Maisie allow herself to hope that she and Patrick could be more than just colleagues?As Christmas approaches, Maisie finds herself dreading the spring, when Patrick is due to leave. With the help of a little Christmas magic, can Maisie get the happily ever after she always dreamed of?Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles is the first in a stunning new series from Phillipa Ashley. The perfect book to snuggle up with this Christmas.Praise for Phillipa Ashley’s bestselling Cornish books:‘Warm and funny and feel-good. The best sort of holiday read.’ Katie Fforde‘Filled with warm and likeable characters. Great fun!’ Jill Mansell‘A glorious, tantalising taste of Cornwall, I could almost taste the salt of the sea air as I read it.’ Jules Wake‘The perfect read for wherever you take your holiday but chances are if you read this first you’ll want to be heading to Cornwall!’ Bella Osborne‘An utterly glorious, escapist read from a one of the freshest voices to emerge in women's fiction today. I loved every gorgeous page.’ Claudia Carroll
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Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles
The Driftwood Inn
Phillipa Ashley
HarperImpulse an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
The News Building
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in ebook format by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Phillipa Ashley 2017
Cover illustration © Robyn Neild
Cover design © Alison Groom
Phillipa Ashley 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: 9780008259792
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008257309
Version: 2017-08-23
For my wonderful mum and dad
Table of Contents
The Isles of Scilly are one of my favourite places in the world – not that I’ve travelled that much of the world but I’ve been lucky enough to visit a few locations renowned for their stunning coastlines, including Grenada, St Lucia, Sardinia, Corsica and Southern Australia. There are some beautiful beaches in all of these places but I think the white sands and jewel-like seas of St Mary’s, St Martin’s, St Agnes, Tresco and Bryher are equally, if not more, breathtaking than any of those exotic hotspots.
From the moment I first glimpsed Scilly from a tiny Skybus aircraft in September 2014, I was smitten. From the air, the isles look like a necklace of emerald gems fringed by sparkling sands, set in a turquoise, jade and sapphire lagoon. (Just remember that we’re in the chilly Atlantic, thirty miles west of Cornwall and that it can rain and the fog can roll in. Take your wellies, walking boots and umbrella as well as your bikini!)
Within half an hour of setting foot on the ‘Main Island’, St Mary’s, I knew that one day I had to set a novel there. However, if you go looking for Gull Island, St Piran’s, St Saviour’s, Petroc or any of the people, pubs or businesses featured in this series, I’m afraid you won’t find them. They’re all products of my imagination. While I’ve set some of the scenes on St Mary’s, almost all of the organisations mentioned in the series are completely fictional and I’ve had to change aspects of the ‘real’ Scilly to suit my stories.
On saying that, if you visit Scilly I hope you will find stunning landscapes, welcoming pubs and cafés, pretty flower farms and warm, hardworking communities very like the ones you’ll read about in these books. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide where Scilly ends and the Little Cornish Isles begin.
Phillipa x
18 October
Maisie Samson was the only living soul on Gull Island. At least, that’s how it felt as she padded over the sand towards the silver-smooth waters of the Petroc channel that morning. Behind her, the Driftwood Inn basked in the first rays of autumn sunlight at the top of the beach. The rising sun brought out the pink in the granite walls of the pub that Maisie had returned home to eight months previously.
A cormorant dried its wings on a sandbar in the middle of the narrow channel that separated Gull Island from its neighbour, Petroc Island. Rubbing her arms to warm herself, Maisie picked her way between the bleached sticks of driftwood that gave the inn its name. In the damp sand, tiny shells glimmered in the sunlight, uncovered by the retreating tide.
Letting the chilly wavelets nibble at her toes, she turned back to look at the inn. The curtains were still drawn in the windows of the flat over the pub. Last night, the bar was rocking with a folk band, and Ray and Hazel Samson were having a well-earned lie-in.
Despite falling into her bed at half-past midnight, Maisie had woken early and decided to go for a swim while she had the beach to herself. Hers were the only footprints leading down the beach and probably the first ones to be made on any beach on the whole of Gull Island today. That was something, wasn’t it? To be alone for a few minutes in a busy overcrowded world? No matter what had happened over the past year, she wouldn’t swap places with anyone this morning.
