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Moonlight Over Manhattan: A charming, heart-warming and lovely read that won’t disappoint!
Sarah Morgan
From the number 1 bestselling author of Sleigh Bells in the Snow‘An absolute delight’ Sunday Times bestselling Veronica HenryDetermined to conquer a lifetime of shyness, Harriet Knight challenges herself to do one thing a day in December that scares her, including celebrating Christmas without her family. But when dog-walker Harriet meets her newest client, exuberant spaniel Madi, she adds an extra challenge to her list – dealing with Madi's temporary dog-sitter, gruff doctor Ethan Black, and their very unexpected chemistry.Ethan thought he was used to chaos, until he met Madi – how can one tiny dog cause such mayhem? To Ethan, the solution is simple – he will pay Harriet to share his New York apartment and provide 24-hour care. But there's nothing simple about how Harriet makes him feel.Ethan's kisses make Harriet shine brighter than the stars over moonlit Manhattan. But when his dog-sitting duties are over, and Harriet returns to her own home, will she dare to take the biggest challenge of all – letting Ethan know he has her heart for life, not just for Christmas?
Praise for Sarah Morgan (#ulink_b70c1d61-95e0-54a2-9c2d-6a53b6385e04)
‘The perfect book to curl up with’
Heat
‘Lovers of romance will relish this tale of friendship, fun and flirting set in beautiful New York.’
My Weekly
‘Morgan excels in balancing the sweet and sexy to create the perfect blend.’
Booklist
‘A gorgeously sparkly romance about letting go and learning to love again.’ Julia Williams, bestselling author of Coming Home for Christmas
‘Full of romance and sparkle’
Lovereading
‘Morgan is a magician with words’
RT Book Reviews
‘Definitely looking forward to more from Sarah Morgan’
Smexy Books
‘Morgan’s novel delivers the classic sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic experience.’
Publisher’s Weekly
‘Perfect chick-lit’
BEST Magazine
‘Her dynamic prose like narrative is eloquent, the laugh-out-loud humor lightens the load and both her big-city and small-town settings are perfect’
RT Book Reviews
SARAH MORGAN lives near London with her husband and two sons. An international bestseller, her books have been translated into more than 30 languages and she has sold over 15 million copies. For more about Sarah visit her website www.sarahmorgan.com (http://www.sarahmorgan.com), and sign up to her newsletter. She loves to connect with readers on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan (http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan)), Twitter and Instagram.
Dear Reader (#u908a3443-f544-54f8-8617-b2f2d7920bb5)
One of my favorite quotes (and I’ve used it in the front of this book) is from Eleanor Roosevelt, who said ‘do one thing every day that scares you’.
That quote is perfect for the heroine of this story. Harriet is a twin, and she is the shy twin. Life wasn’t easy for her growing up and now her confident twin sister has moved out of their apartment, she is forced to make a new life for herself. And it’s hard. She knows she has to push herself out of her comfort zone, and so resolves to do one thing every day that challenges her.
Like most people, Harriet is a mixture of strength and vulnerability and I loved watching her grow in confidence and find her own path.
As some of you know, I wrote a number of medical romances before writing longer books, and I still can’t resist a sexy doctor. So my hero in this story, Dr. Ethan Black, works in the emergency department (as I did, many years ago before I changed careers and started writing stories while wearing my pajamas.) He is my favorite type of hero – strong, kind, smart and patient. I don’t blame Harriet for falling in love with him (I hope you do too!), but in the end loving Ethan becomes her greatest challenge of all.
This is a story about pushing the boundaries. It’s about courage, friendship and of course romance, all against the snowy, sparkly backdrop of New York City.
I hope you love it.
Sarah
xxx
To Nora, Laura, Ruth, Mary, Kat and Janeen for the laughs, friendship and great memories.
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Contents
Cover (#u9d92d6ab-feca-56b7-9a7c-930fb6f69186)
Praise (#ulink_3aed58d1-be51-58da-bfb9-ecfb70ce9026)
About the Author (#ub94d06f0-2590-5fda-ac60-498c80b9af5f)
Title Page (#u7a79e006-9aed-5160-af35-123f23a9ef62)
Dear Reader (#u8a1e21b7-dfdd-5df7-ad1e-72ead2c5e667)
Dedication (#u69da5bfa-eb95-5622-9552-54cb68bcc16d)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_92e1f3a4-f9c1-5e07-af83-6adc42fd7c71)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_bdbe18e5-1d39-5fb8-8858-e5bb00ea6e5d)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_1a6a71f4-e70d-5aaf-be3f-3fe4b8820b03)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_ab1c1037-54c7-576c-92ff-3654a31d850e)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_fa293ed7-e61a-51b6-8625-7aa451e5c360)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_6f49e3e1-3b0f-5f34-8987-f71cf79f277b)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_e72b8274-490e-5ee9-9ca4-fa53b588c09f)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_1cded4ee-da01-5b43-ae3f-1fca849f5aa2)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BONUS STORY – A NEW YORK CHRISTMAS FAIRY TALE
THANK YOU (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt from HOW TO KEEP A SECRET (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_28c16fc8-d3ba-54c1-b91b-c34b90d26f47)
THIS WASN’T HOW a date was supposed to end.
If she’d known she was going to have to climb out of the window of the ladies’ room, she wouldn’t have chosen tonight to wear insanely high heels. Why hadn’t she spent more time learning to balance before leaving her apartment?
She’d never been a high heel sort of person, which was exactly why she was now wearing a pair of skyscraper stilettos. Another thing ticked off the list she’d made of Things Harriet Knight Wouldn’t Normally Do.
It was an embarrassingly long list, compiled one lonely October night when she’d realized that the reason she was sitting in the apartment on her own, talking to the animals she fostered, was that she lived her life safely cocooned inside her comfort zone. At this rate she was going to die alone, surrounded by a hundred dogs and cats.
Here lies Harriet, who knew a lot about hair balls, but not a whole lot about the other kind.
A life of sin would have been more exciting, but she’d picked up the wrong rule book when she was born. As a child she’d learned how to hide. How to make herself small, if not exactly invisible. Ever since then she’d trodden the safest path, and she’d done it while wearing sensible shoes. Plenty of people, including her twin sister and her brother, would say she had good reason for that. Whatever reasons lay in her past, she lived a small life and she was uncomfortably aware that she kept it that way through choice.
The F word loomed big in her world.
Not the curse. She wasn’t the sort of person who cursed. For her, the F word was Fear.
Fear of humiliation, fear of failing, fear of what other people thought of her, and all those fears originated from fear of her father.
She was tired of the F word.
She didn’t want to live life alone, which was why she’d decided that for Christmas she was giving herself a new gift.
Courage.
She didn’t want to look back on her life in fifty years’ time and wonder about the things she might have done had she been braver. She didn’t want to feel regret. During a happy Thanksgiving spent with Daniel and his soon-to-be wife, Molly, she’d distilled her fear list to a challenge a day.
Challenge Harriet.
She was going on a quest to find the confidence that eluded her and if she couldn’t find it then she’d fake it.
For the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, she would do one thing every day that scared her, or at least made her uncomfortable. It had to be something that made her think I don’t want to do that.
For one month, she would make a point of doing the opposite of what she would usually do.
A month of putting herself through her own kind of hell.
She was going to emerge from the challenge a new, improved version of herself. Stronger. Bolder. More confident. More—everything.
Which was why she was now hanging out of a bathroom window being supported by her new best friend Natalie. Luckily for her, the restaurant wasn’t on the roof terrace.
“Take your shoes off,” Natalie advised. “I’ll drop them down to you.”
“They’ll impale me or knock me unconscious. It might be safer to keep them on my feet, Natalie.” There were days when she questioned the benefits of being sensible, but right now she wasn’t sure if it stopped her having fun or if it kept her alive.
“Call me Nat. If I’m helping you escape, we might as well drop the formalities. And you can’t keep those shoes on your feet. You’ll injure yourself when you land. And give me your purse.”
Harriet clung to it. This was New York City. She would no more hand her purse to a stranger than she would walk naked through Central Park. It went against every instinct she had. She was the type of person who looked twice before she crossed the road, who checked the lock on her door before she went to sleep. She wasn’t a risk-taker.
Which was exactly why she should do it.
Forcing down the side of her that wanted to clutch the purse to her chest and never let it go, she thrust it at Nat. “Take it. And drop it down to me.” She eased one leg out of the window, ignoring the voice of anxiety that rang loud in her head. What if she didn’t? What if she ran off with it? Used all her credit cards? Stole her identity?
If Nat wanted to steal her identity, she was welcome to it. She was more than ready to be someone else. Particularly after the evening she’d just had.
Being herself wasn’t working out so well.
