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Fern Britton 3-Book Collection: The Holiday Home, A Seaside Affair, A Good Catch
Fern Britton
A collection of the latest brilliant Sunday Times bestsellers from Fern Britton.THE HOLIDAY HOMEEach year, the Carew sisters embark on their yearly trip to the family holiday home, Atlantic House, set on a picturesque Cornish cliff.Constance, loving wife to philandering husband Greg, has always been outwitted by her manipulative sibling Prudence, but this year she’s finally had enough.When an old face reappears on the scene, years of simmering resentments reach boiling point, but little do the women know that a long-buried secret is about to crawl out of the woodwork . . .A SEASIDE AFFAIRWhen the residents of the Cornish seaside town of Trevay discover that their much-loved theatre is about to be closed, they are up in arms. It falls to hotshot producer and vicar’s wife Penny Leighton to devise a rescue plan, and she starts to pull in some serious favours.The town is soon deluged by actors, all keen to take part in a charity season at the theatre. One of the new supporters is Jess Tate, girlfriend of TV heartthrob Ryan Hearst. His career is on the rise while her own is in the doldrums. But everything is about to change. Trevay must put on the show of its life – can the villagers, and Jess, hold on to the thing they love the most?A GOOD CATCHBeautiful Greer Clovelly is used to getting her own way. She’s been in love with Jesse Behenna since her first day at school and she’s determined that one day, they’ll be married.Loveday Carter loves Jesse too. But living in the shadow of her friend has become a way of life, and she knows that what Greer wants, she usually gets.Jesse, caught in the middle, faces an agonising choice. And what about his best friend Mickey, who worships the ground that Loveday walks on?As the dark clouds start to gather the four friends find themselves weathering a storm – one that has the power to sink them all . . .
FERN BRITTON: 3-BOOK COLLECTION
The Holiday Home
A Seaside Affair
A Good Catch
Fern Britton
Copyright (#ulink_3565a606-9623-501b-98e2-cd5a56e4d529)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Fern Britton 2013, 2014, 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
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: : 9780007468553; 9780007468584; 9780007562954
Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008160104
Version: 2017-11-21
Contents
Cover (#u464316c4-03f8-5e58-8d41-08b144227b08)
Title Page (#u2cc050b3-ed9a-5223-b3d6-16d88ac24c04)
Copyright (#u57a52854-fb95-5aec-9623-208efe4e4728)
The Holiday Home (#u657864e0-d215-57f8-ba79-d60e97fd8c46)
A Seaside Affair (#u79f061c5-5be1-556c-8929-72445dc1b313)
A Good Catch (#u940651f7-1e25-5bfd-b6f4-687be57ff67f)
About the Author (#uc6297d3f-82c3-5371-ae6c-aa6f273010d3)
Also by Fern Britton (#uefad4e11-f462-5d4a-9fc9-a4119820f1cc)
About the Publisher (#u9779097d-24c0-53f4-b31a-d01caf740a28)
FERN BRITTON
The Holiday Home
Copyright (#ulink_5e7e40e3-ff2a-53ac-905f-9137f94b10a4)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Copyright © Fern Britton 2013
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Illustration © Robyn Neild
Author photograph © Neil Cooper
The author 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 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: 9780007468539
Ebook Edition © 2013 ISBN: 9780007468553
Version: 2017-11-21
Dedication (#ulink_6ad63e50-5b96-5870-90b6-20f03d64c8d8)
For Jack. May all your dreams come true. I love you.
Mum xx
Contents
Cover (#u75b33712-cc66-56a5-b7f1-d269ee15698c)
Title Page (#u657864e0-d215-57f8-ba79-d60e97fd8c46)
Copyright (#uc01efecd-7f19-5acc-bd76-ac042b0e18eb)
Dedication (#u374e6ff7-02c0-5526-9427-4b432b4d6b10)
Prologue (#ueb6466b0-db70-5fbf-9cf3-70fad6b24b3c)
Chapter 1 (#u0575a61b-f82c-5c3f-b90a-5370d4f59617)
Chapter 2 (#u1fe7ef7e-cdf6-5f25-9d5b-3437ede4e5a7)
Chapter 3 (#uc09fadf7-8a6d-5bef-a70e-1117b53b5395)
Chapter 4 (#ucc3e5f7a-ea84-527c-9764-5a3c0f1bd935)
Chapter 5 (#u8a96f392-c08c-57c8-8aa5-1da75c21e2d3)
Chapter 6 (#u79963433-d2f8-5284-a946-6e09da6f579d)
Chapter 7 (#u17eae4c3-6a44-52e2-aefa-401d699e6d79)
Chapter 8 (#u179f1c4b-873e-52db-89dc-4d067cc4caa0)
Chapter 9 (#uafbc75ef-8cdd-55d0-84a4-4ca95be26c7d)
Chapter 10 (#uec07a044-9c95-5e8e-b0b8-15f46adb61eb)
Chapter 11 (#ub21ef676-753a-5967-97e1-c0fbf34eec77)
Chapter 12 (#u10d5ebdd-fc0c-5f37-851d-f08d0a9b8687)
Chapter 13 (#u41821e24-0b8a-57c5-bc04-d0676370ce23)
Chapter 14 (#u3e41a5b3-6d21-5814-a898-ec747d7e2e1f)
Chapter 15 (#u639c4c10-9610-5972-a926-17e194404497)
Chapter 16 (#ucaa4b8ac-c0c8-5fec-ba1a-5d31bce99429)
Chapter 17 (#u992d053c-d589-5c3c-b1a6-6653ac04054c)
Chapter 18 (#uf65e2947-e2c8-532a-bdc7-e5b2a777767d)
Chapter 19 (#u11a0089d-bd98-560e-b968-139d7406c097)
Chapter 20 (#u9af559db-a614-5bc6-b04f-7adbb23f6d80)
Chapter 21 (#u6d223886-f0c3-5142-b2bf-cd12b260c404)
Chapter 22 (#uf1145ed3-949b-5782-86e0-2bc66571b84b)
Chapter 23 (#u48af85b4-19bd-5e41-9e2f-bbb7b107ef1b)
Chapter 24 (#ub6f181bb-bd3a-5e53-a064-887298aa0a5f)
Chapter 25 (#u775ae00f-4e36-57cf-989c-dc818ed47e2c)
Chapter 26 (#u6ea8a91f-00af-5fe4-9e64-d8294afa1504)
Chapter 27 (#u2886d1a0-7b74-54be-b79f-5352e09c3fd1)
Chapter 28 (#u38d66e3f-59ca-5d42-a9f6-00041cceb725)
Chapter 29 (#u5a9e398a-69be-5cd4-8114-6f19d0931b7c)
Chapter 30 (#uc535f5ff-2040-52d6-ac10-ff75e6f8c62e)
Chapter 31 (#ude1a9284-96ca-5aa1-862a-05a11a276933)
Chapter 32 (#u2fe63057-6e87-57c8-8119-c18a372a3f9a)
Epilogue (#u78aa84fc-a8c9-5dc4-a49d-dc887c108086)
Acknowledgements (#u3dab5159-ceab-5794-a65f-38e8c66308a2)
Prologue (#ulink_81e534db-1fe7-55dd-82f8-c098855ce912)
Atlantic House 1988
THE HUSK OF A DEAD FLY LAY DRY AND BRITTLE on the sun-bleached oak window sill.
The house was silent and empty in the drowsiness of the bright spring morning. If its almost three-hundred-year-old walls harboured any memories of previous occupants, the weddings and wakes, conceptions and christenings that had taken place here, there was no sign. Where rich brocade curtains had once hung from the tall windows, there clung trailing cobwebs. The days when handsome young men in tight breeches and high-collared frock coats had wooed maidens in muslin dresses were a thing of the past. Maybe the rustle of petticoats along the top landing could still be heard, but only by the tattered moths. In the musty bedrooms, patches of insidious damp crept ever outward, their spread unobserved and unchecked. In the cellars, the dark, dank, seaweed-scented stone walls were covered in a glistening silvery scrawl, marking the passage of slugs and snails. The worn steps, hewn out of the rocky floor, descended into darkness and the sound of the waves lapping against the walls of a natural cave beneath the house. On moonless nights, two hundred years ago, smugglers would time their arrival for high tide, steering their vessels through the opening in the rocks on the beach where the waves surged in, on into the torchlit cavern where their cargo of contraband brandy, tobacco and lace would be unloaded, away from the prying eyes of the revenue men. Only the odd holidaymaker ventured into the cave nowadays, but a rockfall twenty metres from the beach entrance prevented them from reaching the forgotten cave. The sea, however, continued as it always had done, ebbing and flowing into the recesses below Atlantic House.
In the old days, the gentleman of the house would welcome his gang of smugglers and lead them up the stone steps into an innocent-looking outhouse. A fortified wooden door opened into the garden. To the left was the back door of the house, now stiff with salt and age, which led into the kitchen. In front of the old hearth and chimney, still blackened by the fires of countless cooks, smugglers would have their wounds attended to by the lady of the house. And if the revenue men whose guns had caused the wounds came knocking, the fugitive would stay hidden in the cool of the pantry while the gentleman and his lady entertained them.
Today the ancient range, once the beating heart of the house, was cold, its doors seized with rust and its hot plates covered in soot falls.
Out in the garden, wild with broom, tamarisk, escallonia and fuchsia, the lawn bore no resemblance to the croquet pitch it had been between the two world wars; these days it was a Cornish meadow giving on to a buckthorn and gorse hedge. The weathered wooden gate, which had once banged so gaily on its sprung hinge with the constant traffic of beach-bound children, now drooped sadly.
As he placed the heavy key in the lock, estate agent Trevor Castle took in the commanding elevated position overlooking the much-sought-after Treviscum Beach. The key refused to move. Trevor leaned against the studded oak front door, gave the key a twist, and tried again. Still nothing. Bending down, he laid his clipboard, camera and retractable tape measure on the worn flagstones. Using both hands now, he managed to get the reluctant key to turn. As he pushed open the heavy door, a horrible squeal of protest from the unoiled hinges gave him a little fright. He steadied himself and carried on pushing. Something was blocking the door. When he had created a big enough gap to squeeze his head through, he paused for a moment, bracing himself for the prospect of a rotting corpse on the other side of the door. To his relief, when his eyes adjusted to the darkness he made out a pile of faded circulars and junk mail wedged against it. Chuckling at his stupidity, Trevor bent his full weight against the door and heaved until the opening was wide enough for him to step into the house. He stooped to clear the blockage and then returned to the porch to collect his estate-agent tackle.
With the door now open wide, the sun poured in, lighting up the impressive oak-panelled hall and spilling into the open doorway of the grand drawing room ahead with its breathtaking view down to the ocean.
‘Wow. Hello, House,’ Trevor said out loud. He stepped into the hall, stirring aged dust motes. He didn’t feel any gust of wind, but the front door banged shut so loudly behind him, he gave an involuntary jump and a yelp of fright. Hand resting on his pounding heart, he exhaled with relief.
