SARAH BENNETT has been reading for as long as she can remember. Raised in a family of bookworms, her love affair with books of all genres has culminated in the ultimate Happy Ever After: getting to write her own stories to share with others.
Born and raised in a military family, she is happily married to her own Officer (who is sometimes even A Gentleman). Home is wherever he lays his hat, and life has taught them both that the best family is the one you create from friends as well as relatives.
When not reading or writing, Sarah is a devotee of afternoon naps and sailing the high seas, but only on vessels large enough to accommodate a casino and a choice of restaurants.
You can connect with her via twitter @Sarahlou_writes or on Facebook www.facebook.com/âSarahBennettAuthor
HQ
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This edition 2019
1
First published in Great Britain by
HQ, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Copyright © Sarah Bennett 2018
Sarah Bennett asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for 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 authorâs
imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade
or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without
the publisherâs prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than
that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Source ISBN: 9780008321079
E-book Edition ISBN: 9780008281342
Version: 2018-10-30
Owen Coburn stared at the bottles lined in neat rows on the mirrored shelves opposite him. Heâd never been one to drown his sorrows, but the collection of single malts seemed to whisper a lullaby more seductive than the songs of the mythical siren which the seafront pub had been named after. With more effort than it shouldâve taken, he wrenched his eyes from the array of spirits and studied the rest of the busy bar as he waited to be served. Like his bedroom upstairs, the place was spotlessly clean, if a little worn in places.
Black-and-white photographs studded the pale-blue walls, showing scenes of Lavender Bay from times gone past. Ladies in white dresses clutching parasols in one hand, the fingers of the other tucked into the arms of besuited gentlemen as they strolled the promenade. Fishermen sorting their nets in the old harbour, faces leathered from years of exposure to sea and sun.
On the side of the wooden upright beside him a ragged line of young men dressed in their Sunday best beamed out of the past, their expressions a mixture of shy pride and cocky confidence. With their hair neatly slicked and battered suitcases at their feet, not one of them looked older than he was now. Owen wondered if any of them had understood what awaited them on the bloody fields of Europe and how manyâif anyâhad returned. Faint writing at the bottom of the photo caught his eye. Hating the need inside him, Owen scanned the cramped squiggles on the photo. No Blackmores among them.
With a snort of disgust at himself, he turned away. What the hell was he doing chasing shadows? According to the piece of paper burning a hole in his pocket, Deborah Mary Blackmore had been 17 when sheâd given up her son for adoption. Sheâd listed Lavender Bay as her place of birth, but extensive searches had yielded no trace of her. Either his mother was a ghost, or sheâd lied about her name.
Requesting his original birth certificate had seemed like a good way of setting the final pieces of his past to rest. After a childhood in care where the kindest thing anyone had ever done was ignore him, compartmenâtalisation had become his daily survival techniqueâwhat hadnât killed him didnât make him stronger so much as it got stuffed in a mental box and shoved to the furthest reaches of conscious memory. As a result, heâd managed to convince himself that delving into his origins could be an exercise in intellectual curiosity, nothing more.