Coming Home For Christmas: Warm, humorous and completely irresistible!
Warm, humorous and completely irresistible. All you want for Christmas is right here!“Terrifically warm, with lovely, lively characters.” Fiona Walker“This story warms you like a cosy cup of cocoa.” CloserThese three friends are dreading Christmas…Cat needs to get off the ‘has-been’ heap and rescue her flagging TV career, but the demands of her extended family are reaching fever pitch and she barely has time to breathe. Meanwhile, Pippa has got too many balls to juggle as a struggling single mum trying to hang on to her family farm. And Marianne’s marriage is looking distinctly rocky now her beloved husband’s ex is back on the scene.Happy Christmas? Forget it. But Christmas is a time for miracles, and when the villagers learn they must fight for what they love, it becomes clear that there is festive magic in the air.Suddenly for Cat, Pippa and Marianne, it’s looking like it might just be a Christmas to remember…
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Coming Home For Christmas
JULIA WILLIAMS
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014
Copyright © Julia Williams 2014
Cover illustration © Adrian Valencia 2014
Cover design © Debbie Clement 2014
Julia Williams 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: 9781847563583
Ebook Edition © September 2014 ISBN: 9780007464494
Version: 2016-02-17
To Ann Moffatt, my wonderful mother. With love.
Contents
Part Two: It’s going to take some time
Part Three: A thousand memories
Cat Tinsall was standing by the window, stirring the Christmas pudding, looking out as dark clouds rolled over the hills, threatening a cold and rainy night. The kids would be in from school soon, and her granddaughter Lou Lou was upstairs having a nap. She was glad to be in her cosy warm kitchen, with a cup of tea, and her husband, Noel, who was working from home today, sitting at the table on his laptop.
‘Bugger!’ Noel was angrily staring at his computer screen as if by some miracle it could tell him some happier news.
‘Problem?’ Cat asked.
‘Not sure,’ said Noel. ‘But it looks like we’ve been gazumped again on some land to the north of Shrewsbury Ralph and I have been looking at. We were planning to build affordable starter homes, but this firm, LK Holdings, seems to have got in there first. That’s the second time in the last few months. They’re acquiring a hell of a lot of land in the area. We’ll have to look for somewhere else. Damn. That was such a good spot, and so needed.’
Cat smiled fondly at her husband, his fair hair might be greying now, but his eyes were the same dazzling blue, and thanks to a strict gym regime, Noel was still as attractive to her as the day they met. And bless him, he was always saying the same about her, though her figure wasn’t quite as trim as it once was, and her own fair hair was going to need some help from the hairdresser soon.
She wandered over, still mixing her pudding, to see what had fired him up now. Noel was at his most passionate when talking about sustainable development, a subject he cared about deeply. And so much happier here in the picturesque village of Hope Christmas, working for Ralph Nicholas, a local landowner who ran a small family business, than when he’d worked for a big engineering firm in London and felt all his principles being compromised on a daily basis. One of the many good things about making a home, here, was the new lease of life Noel had gained from the move.
‘Never mind,’ she reassured him, ‘I’m sure you’ll find something else.’
‘It’s not just that,’ said Noel, looking pensive. ‘I’ve heard a rumour that LK Holdings are sniffing around Hope Christmas. They’re big in the leisure business, and want to build a luxury development here.’
‘Really?’ said Cat surprised. Hope Christmas was the kind of place that supported upmarket B&Bs, rather than big hotels: the last of which had long been sold for a nursing home.
‘Really,’ said Noel. ‘There are one or two large bits of land on the market at the moment. I’d say they’re ripe for the picking. I believe Blackstock Farm has been for sale for several months. I know it’s been empty for a while.’
