ACCLAIM FOR CAROLINE GEORGE
“Caroline George infuses an epistolary love story with a romance and charm that crosses centuries. Touching and inventive, it bursts with wit, warmth, and a blending of classic and contemporary that goes together like scones and clotted cream. Dearest Josephine is a delight.”
—Emily Bain Murphy, author of The Disappearances
“Dearest Josephine is the type of story that becomes your own. The characters’ heartaches worked their way into my own chest until I hurt with them, hoped with them, and dared to dream with them. This book is teeming with swoon-worthy prose, adorable humor, and an expert delivery of ‘Will they end up together?’ I guarantee you’ll be burning the midnight candle to a stub to get answers. Step aside Pride and Prejudice, there’s a new romance on the English moors.”
—Nadine Brandes, author of Romanov
“Dearest Josephine is more than an immersive read. It is a book lover’s dream experience. Josie’s residence in a gothic English manor and her deeply romantic connection to Elias, who lived years in the past, is as chillingly atmospheric as Rochester calling across the moors. This story is George’s treatise on the power of books and character to creep across centuries, to pull us close and invite us to live in a fantasy where we find love—literally—in the kinship of ink and binding. But it also acknowledges the dangers of letting ourselves fall too deeply when sometimes an equally powerful connection is waiting next door. This love letter to books, and the readers who exist in and for them, is a wondrously singular escape.”
—Rachel McMillan, author of The London Restoration and The Mozart Code
OTHER BOOKS BY CAROLINE GEORGE
The Vestige
The Prime Way Program: Just Strength
The Prime Way Program: Be the Victor
Dearest Josephine
Copyright © 2021 Caroline George
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Published in association with Cyle Young of C.Y.L.E (Cyle Young Literary Elite, LLC), a literary agency.
Interior design: Emily Ghattas
Map design: Matthew Covington
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: George, Caroline, 1997- author.
Title: Dearest Josephine / Caroline George.
Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, [2021] | Summary: “Caroline George sweeps readers up into two different time periods with an unexpected love story that prompts us to reimagine what it means to be present with the people we love”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020032767 (print) | LCCN 2020032768 (ebook) | ISBN 9780785236184 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780785236191 (epub) | ISBN 9780785236207 (audio download)
Epub Edition December 2020 9780785236191
Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories. | Epistolary fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3607.E6394 D43 2021 (print) | LCC PS3607.E6394 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032767
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032768
Printed in the United States of America
2122232425LSC10987654321
For Tessa,
Who believed in this story
before it reached the page.
And for everyone who’s found
love within a book.
CONTENTS
Cover
Acclaim for Caroline George
Other Books by Caroline George
Title Page
Copyright
Map
One: Josie
Two: Elias
Three: The Novel
Four: Josie
Five: Elias
Six: the Novel
Seven: Josie
Eight: Elias
Nine: The Novel
Ten: Josie
Eleven: Elias
Twelve: the Novel
Thirteen: Josie
Fourteen: Elias
Fifteen: The Novel
Sixteen: The Novel
Seventeen: Josie
Eighteen: Elias
Nineteen: The Novel
Twenty: Josie
Twenty-One: Elias
Twenty-Two: The Novel
Twenty-Three: Josie
Twenty-Four: Elias
Twenty-Five: The Novel
Twenty-Six: Josie
Twenty-Seven: Elias
Twenty-Eight: The Novel
Twenty-Nine: Josie
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
For a moment with you,
I wait an eternity.
ONE
JOSIE
* * *
From: Josie De Clare
Sent: Monday, June 20, 1:38 PM
To: Faith Moretti
Subject: Neil Is Rubbish – We Hate Neil
Hi Faith,
I did a thing. A big thing. And I’m not sure how to tell you without sounding like the rotten human being who abandoned her best friend for a boy. The rotten human being who reached out the moment she broke up with said boy. But surprise. That’s what I’m doing. Reaching out.
Rashad and I broke up. Well, I broke up with him after he said we needed to cool down for a while. Maybe he broke up with me first. I mean, the whole relationship was a blurry mess.
You said he wasn’t good for me. I should’ve listened. I should’ve gone to the school dance with you, taken you to the airport after graduation. Though you might not believe me, I haven’t forgotten that during our first day at Stonehill Academy, we planned to end our thirteenth year by replacing all the headmaster photos with cut-outs of Leonardo DiCaprio. Epic prank idea. Headmistress Poston would’ve freaked.
I’m sorry for ruining your last year in England.
Guess my brain was scrambled by Rashad’s chocolate-brown eyes and hair that always looked windswept, like he’d been on a motorbike. Ugh! And his gold chain. Laugh all you want, but chains on the right boy . . . (*kisses fingertips*) perfecto.
Rashad drove me to the bus station afterward. As I yanked my luggage from the trunk of his MINI Cooper, he said, “We need to break up, love. Your mood swings put a damper on my creativity.” (Like my dad’s death triggered his lack of artistic talent.) I told him we’d already broken up. Then I poured his cherry-lime energy drink onto his Fenty trainers.
Not my best moment.
Anyway, I decided to email you because (1.) I’m the wordiest person alive, and (2.) I have no idea how international calls or texts work. Part of me thinks I’ll get a bill for two hundred pounds if I try to phone you. That’s not an excuse for my lack of communication. I know I’ve been rotten and selfish—and you deserve to hate me. I can’t even blame cancer.
You lost my dad too.
I want to be friends again. Remember our first slumber party at my house? Dad
made the worst jam roly-poly, and we filmed videos of us singing karaoke. We promised to stay friends forever. Swore it. Heck, I think we did a friendship ritual to seal the deal.
Please forgive me, Faith. London is rubbish without you. I’m rubbish without you. Really, everything in my life seems destined to go wrong. I forgot to post my application to university and won’t be able to re-enrol until the spring term. I ruined our relationship. Dad passed away, you returned to America, and Rashad . . . well, Rashad ended up being Rashad.
How did you put up with me for so many years? I can’t even be alone for a couple hours without getting annoyed or wanting to dye my hair pink. That brings me to my second bit of news. I’m on my way to Atteberry—a village only an hour drive from Scotland’s border. After Dad passed, I learned he’d purchased an estate in the town. He liked to renovate historical homes, but he never told me about the property. Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise.
Dad got a kick out of surprises.
I need to be alone (and hopefully not dye my hair) while I figure out what’s next for me. I feel like a volcano about to explode, like I haven’t breathed—really breathed—in months. I threw some clothes into a suitcase, texted my boss at the café, and left Dad’s townhouse without even feeding the cat. (Don’t worry. Mum agreed to care for Antoni while I’m gone.)
My first term at uni starts in January, which means I have seven months to decide what I want to do with my life. I’m seriously considering becoming a hermit with pink hair.
So far this holiday isn’t off to a good start. My bus stopped at a petrol station not long ago. I went inside and had a mental breakdown while waiting to purchase tampons, jelly babies, and chocolate. Tears and snot everywhere.
The cashier gave me a pervert stare, you know, like the guys at Stonehill Academy. His lopsided name tag read: HELLO, MY NAME IS NEIL. He touched my candy with his tobacco-stained fingers and said, “One awful period, huh?”
All manners went out the shop’s window. Instead of answering the question with a polite NO, I wiped my tears and yelled, “Neil, I’m having a real crappy day. Give me the chocolate.” And that’s how I managed to embarrass myself to a point of extinction.
My bus reaches Atteberry in a few minutes, so I must bring this monologue to a close. Overall, I want to tell you . . . I know I messed up. I messed up when I ignored your phone calls. I messed up when I didn’t talk to you at Dad’s funeral. I’m a mess. I’ve been a mess for a while. But I don’t want to be messy anymore.
You don’t owe me a second chance, but would you forgive me just the same?
If you ever want to FaceTime, let me know. I’ll be at Cadwallader Manor for the next few months, so I’ll have plenty of free time.
Cadwallader—sounds like a creature I’d fish out of a pond.
Yours truly,
Josie
(Sent from iPhone)
* * *
* * *
From: Faith Moretti
Sent: Monday, June 20, 3:16 PM
To: Josie De Clare
Subject: Re: Neil is Rubbish – We Hate Neil
Hey Josie,
Thanks for reaching out! I’ll be honest. I stared at my laptop for a solid thirty minutes before I typed one sentence. And look at what I landed on!! Some corporate, autogenerated response that seems like I don’t care about you. But I do care. I am glad you reached out.
I want to be angry and send you all the emails I typed up after graduation. I want to express how much you hurt me, that I thought Rashad was an idiot who used his good looks to manipulate people, that . . . I wasn’t okay after your dad passed. I needed you like you needed me. I wanted to be there for you, to cry with you at the funeral, to get angry at God and life and growing up.
Maybe that’s what hurt the most. Not being there.
During one of our last school lunches, I sat in the refectory with Hannah and Hope while you ate with Rashad. I watched you drape your legs over his lap and snicker at the faculty, and I got so mad because you weren’t you anymore. I almost took the BFF slap bracelet (the one you gave me during our first year at Stonehill) off my backpack. I almost whacked you over the head with it. Not to hurt you. I just wanted to beat some sense into your thick skull.
All that said, I think I forgave you a long time ago. I’m not mad anymore. We promised to stay friends, right? Through all the good and bad. Even when it seemed hard.
So yeah, I’d like to give you that second chance.
Returning to New York was tough. I visited my family in Rochester before I moved to Brooklyn for college. My parents threw an Italian-style welcome party and invited everyone—my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, godparents. (You would’ve loved it. So much food.)
After dinner I brewed a cup of tea while Mom served coffee. My uncle was like, “You fancier than us now, Faith?” He made jokes about England and my second family—what he called you and your dad. He talked about how my cousins went to public school and didn’t need an expensive education to get into college.
Everyone at the table seemed to forget I got into Stonehill on scholarship and because Aunt Sylvia recommended me to Headmistress Poston during her stint as a science teacher. They looked at me like I was an outsider, and I realized I didn’t fit in with them the way I used to, at least not the way I fit with you.
Time has changed me. I no longer snicker at Uncle Sal’s jokes. I prefer tea over Mama’s imported coffee. I wear designer clothes thrifted from online boutiques, not crop tops bought from the mall. Maybe I should’ve noticed the changes sooner, but I wanted to believe everything was the same—my family would be my family again. Still, as I sat at that dining table, I saw it plain as day. The changes. The differences. Why I couldn’t pretend those years in England hadn’t opened a gaping chasm between us.
We had lived apart from each other. We’d gone our separate ways, and en route I stopped wanting their dreams, like the law degree, husband and kids, moving next door to my parents. I decided to pursue a career in fashion, maybe launch my own store chain like the Kardashians. They think that’s frivolous. I guess . . . my family is disappointed because they want the old Faith, and I’m disappointed because they want someone other than me.
Gah, I miss you so much, Josie. I miss eating takeout with you and your dad. I miss our Saturday strolls through Notting Hill. I miss your dad’s movie commentaries and popcorn obsession. I miss every little thing.
Life seems so different now. I live in a crappy one-bedroom apartment and take summer classes. I eat frozen dinners, binge watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It’s just . . . Home doesn’t seem like home without Headmistress Poston’s room checks, our plaid uniforms, and Chicken Tender Tuesdays. I still expect to see you reading upside down whenever I enter my room. And thanks to you, I crave Dairy Milk bars at nine o’clock every night.
We’re not kids anymore, but we’re not grown-ups, either. People said we were adults once we turned eighteen. Do you feel like an adult? I sure don’t. I can’t figure out how to reload my transit card or file taxes. Sometimes I think life would be easier if we could rewind time and do high school all over again. Maybe we’d do it better the second time around. No Rashad. No bangs and Converse. No fights over who’d play Sandy in Grease.
I’m still with Noah, by the way. We managed to survive two years of long-distance dating. He moved to Brooklyn, too, so we see each other all the time. Recently he’s started talking about marriage, which terrifies me. I am NOT ready for more adulthood.
That’s all my news! I guess the best way to conclude is to say you’re forgiven, Josie. We’re friends. Through messes, sucky boyfriends, bad haircuts, whatever—we’ll stay friends. I hope you enjoy your time at Cadwallader Manor. Breathe. Learn to be alone. Figure out what you need to figure out, and I’ll be here, ready to talk or listen or send memes.
Please tell me about Atteberry and your dad’s secret estate. I need details!!
Faith
/> P.S. Let’s stick to emails for now. I need to download a messaging app so my cell phone provider won’t charge a fortune for international texts and calls.
* * *
* * *
From: Josie De Clare
Sent: Monday, June 20, 11:37 PM
To: Faith Moretti
Subject: Cadwallader Manor
Faith, here is my detailed report, per your request.
Atteberry rises from kilometres of farmland, its sprawl nestled at the base of a grand hill. The town possesses a cosy sort of quaintness, almost like that porcelain village my grandmother displays at Christmas. People wander its cobblestone streets and live in homes with thatched rooves. Very old-fashioned. Don’t fret, though. I spotted a few restaurants and bakeries while Norman drove me to the Cadwallader estate, so I won’t starve or lose my mind to the North England quiet. And according to a gentleman at the bus station, Atteberry houses the finest knitting clubs in the country. Would you like a scarf for your birthday?
Dearest Josephine Page 1