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I Don’t Want to Talk About It
Book 5 in the Yorkshire Romances
What if the one person you wanted to talk to wouldn’t listen?
Winter Gregory and her twin sister Daisy live oceans apart but they still have the ‘twin thing’ going on. Daisy is Winter’s port in the storm, the first person she calls when things go wrong …
And things are wrong. Winter has travelled to a remote Yorkshire village to write her new book, and to escape her ex-boyfriend Dan Bekener. Dan never liked her reliance on Daisy and made her choose – but Winter’s twin will always be her first choice.
She soon finds herself immersed in village life after meeting the troubled Hill family; horse-loving eight-year-old Scarlet and damaged, yet temptingly gorgeous, Alex. The distraction is welcome and, when Winter needs to talk, Daisy is always there.
But Dan can’t stay away and remains intent on driving the sisters apart – because Dan knows something about Daisy …
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
Can’t Buy Me Love
Book 6 in the Yorkshire Romances
Is it all too good to be true?
When Willow runs into her old university crush, Luke, she’s a new woman with a new look – not to mention a little bit more cash after a rather substantial inheritance. Could she be lucky enough to score a fortune and her dream man at the same time?
Then Willow meets Cal; a computer geek with a slightly odd sense of humour. They get on like a house on fire – although she soon realises that there is far more to her unassuming new friend than meets the eye …
But money doesn’t always bring happiness, and Willow finds herself struggling to know who to trust. Are the new people in her life there because they care – or is there another reason?
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
Little Teashop of Horrors
Book 7 in the Yorkshire Romances
Secrets, lies, carrot cake – and an owl called Skrillex!
Amy Knowles has always been the plain sidekick to her pretty best friend Jules. And whilst the tearoom they both work in on the Monkpark Hall estate in Yorkshire is not exactly awash with eligible bachelors, it’s obvious where the male attention is concentrated – and it’s not just on the cakes!
There is one man who notices Amy. Joshua Wilson also works at Monkpark, where he flies his birds of prey for visitor entertainment. He lives a lonely existence but he has reasons for choosing isolation – and, in Amy, he may have found somebody who understands.
Then a management change brings slick and well-spoken Edmund Evershott to Monkpark. He’s interested in Amy too, but for what reason? Josh suspects the new manager is up to no good – but will Amy? Because Edmund could leave her with much worse than a broken heart …
Read an extract here.
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
Vampire State of Mind
Book 1 in the Otherworlders
Jessica Grant knows vampires only too well. She runs the York Council tracker programme making sure that Otherworlders are all where they should be, keeps the filing in order and drinks far too much coffee.
To Jess, vampires are annoying and arrogant and far too sexy for their own good, particularly her ex-colleague, Sil, who’s now in charge of Otherworld York. When a demon turns up and threatens not just Jess but the whole world order, she and Sil are forced to work together.
But then Jess turns out to be the key to saving the world, which puts a very different slant on their relationship.
The stakes are high. They are also very, very pointy and Jess isn’t afraid to use them – even on the vampire she’s rather afraid she’s falling in love with …
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
Falling Apart
Book 2 in the Otherworlders
In the mean streets of York, the stakes just got higher – and even pointier.
Jessica Grant liaises with Otherworlders for York Council so she knows that falling in love with a vampire takes a leap of faith. But her lover Sil, the City Vampire in charge of Otherworld York, he wouldn’t run out on her, would he? He wouldn’t let his demon get the better of him. Or would he?
Sil knows there’s a reason for his bad haircut, worse clothes and the trail of bleeding humans in his wake. If only he could remember exactly what he did before someone finds him and shoots him on sight.
With her loyalties already questioned for defending zombies, the Otherworlders no one cares about, Jess must choose which side she’s on, either help her lover or turn him in. Human or Other? Whatever she decides, there’s a high price to pay – and someone to lose.
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
The Art of Christmas
Novella
What if the memories of Christmas past were getting in the way of Christmas future?
It’s been nearly two years since Harriet lost Jonno, but she’s finally decided that it’s time to celebrate Christmas again.
Then she finds a stash of graphic novels belonging to her comic book-loving husband in the attic, and suddenly her world is turned upside down once more.
With the help of eccentric comic book dealer Kell Foxton, she discovers that the comics collected by Jonno are not only extremely valuable, but also hold the key to his secret life – a life that throws Harriet’s entire marriage and every memory she has of her husband into question.
As Harriet grows closer to Kell, she begins to feel like she could learn to love Christmas again – but first, she needs to know the truth.
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
The Boys of Christmas
Novella
Who are the boys of Christmas?
Mattie Arden has just escaped from a toxic relationship so when, a few days before Christmas, she receives a letter informing her that she has inherited a house from her great aunt Millie, it’s a welcome distraction.
Except it comes with a strange proviso: if Mattie wants the house, she must fulfil Millie’s last wish and scatter her ashes over ‘the boys of Christmas’.
In the company of her best friend Toby, Mattie sets out for the seaside village of Christmas Steepleton in the hope of finding out the meaning of her aunt’s bizarre request.
Whilst there, a snowstorm leaves them stranded for Christmas, and still no nearer to finding ‘the boys’. But as the weather gives Mattie time to reflect, she realises the answer to the mystery might have been under her nose all along – and that’s not the only thing …
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
Christmas at the Little Village School
Novella
A teacher’s life is never easy … especially at Christmas!
Working at a tiny village school in rural Yorkshire has its own unique set of challenges – but when teachers Lydia Knight and Jake Immingham are tasked with getting the children to put on a Christmas play for the local elderly people’s home, they know they’re in for a tricky term!
But in between choreographing sugar plum dance routines, reindeer costume malfunctions and trying to contain Rory Scott’s wannabe rap star aspirations, Lydia realises that, even as a teacher, she isn’t past being taught a couple of things – and one of those things is a much-needed lesson in Christmas spirit.
Find out more on the store where you purchased this eBook or visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
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Read a preview of Little Teashop of Horrors next …
Preview
Little Teashop of Horrors
by Jane Lovering
PROLOGUE
The falcon lifted off from the glove and rose effortlessly. She flew a lap of the field, swooping by the tall, scruffy-haired young man whose arm wore the gauntlet that had launched her. Up, up, higher, catching a thermal and climbing, until the walled garden was no more than a focus spot, the old house a grey L-shape set into the green bowl of the hills, like a rock at the bottom of a pool of water. So high now that, had she not been a bird and therefore ignorant of maps, the infrequent lines of roads and the blurring of agriculture into moorland would have looked like an Ordnance Survey sketch of the district. Then, tilting her wing to catch a breeze, she headed off towards the gleaming line of the horizon.
The watching audience gasped, one or two laughed, and then all eyes turned to the scruffy-haired man.
‘Oh, bugger,’ he said. Then, without acknowledging the onlookers, he set off at a run, out of the walled garden, eyes trained on the sky as his falcon became a diminishing black dot against the blue sky.
The small crowd, eyes straining to catch the last glimpse of the bird’s flight, gave a collective groan, which may have been disappointment or, from some of the more reluctant visitors, a kind of vicarious thrill at the ability to so easily escape the claustrophobia of this remote place. Most turned away to go back into the house – after all, they still had to visit the Old Kitchen with its display of seventeenth century cooking implements, and they were determined to get their money’s worth, the entrance fees to the Heritage Trust properties being what they were. Some, deciding that enough was enough where culture and history were concerned, headed for the small teashop that had been atmospherically converted from a coach house in the old stable yard. The disappearance of one of the display birds had been mildly exciting, but now what the day called for was a cup of tea and a slice of carrot cake.
CHAPTER ONE
Amy
The last customer of the day had drained the last of their tea, the last moistened finger had dabbed the remains of a scone into an eager mouth, and I’d squirted my last buttercream flower, when we heard the sound we’d been dreading. The heavy crunch of a large car, sweeping up the gravel drive to Monkpark Hall and drawing up at the main front doors. My heart thumped uncomfortably under my Edwardian outfit. What if the new boss decides to change things? What if he decides on a shake-up of the estate? What if—
‘He’s here.’ Julia threw me a clean apron. ‘Quick, get this on, Ames, you look like you’ve spent the afternoon face down in the European scone mountain.’
‘And who died and made you Mary Berry?’ I muttered, but rebellion was pointless with Julia. She could have ignored the Jacobites. ‘Anyway, is there a scone mountain?’ I discarded my butter-stained overall and threaded my arms through the new one. ‘I mean, there’s EU directives for scone storage, and a mountain would contravene hygiene regulations, you’d have Brian Blessed going up the North Face before you could say “clotted cream”. And why should we have to change, just because some new guy is taking over the management of the big house? We’re not going to be expected to line the steps as he comes in, are we? Like bloody Downton Abbey, all curtseying and rolling our eyes at the footmen. Which we don’t have, and I am not rolling anything at Artichoke Sam, he is odd enough without encouragement.’ I was talking to cover my nervousness, and Julia knew it. Or didn’t know it, but didn’t care why I was babbling.
‘Shut up.’ Brushing off my petty little mutiny, Julia pulled off her mob cap, smoothed her hair down and retied her ponytail. ‘This is no time to start getting all socialist. If new guy reports back to the Heritage Trust that we didn’t sufficiently doff whatever we’re supposed to doff, we could find ourselves out of a job and our lovely cafe being taken over by a couple of maiden aunts who believe in jam pot covers and white supremacy, so get that apron on and round to the front, double time.’
She disappeared into the back room, muttering about mascara, and I stuffed the loose bits of hair back under my cap. It was supremely unflattering and made me look as though I was about to dive into the sea circa 1880, but then I wasn’t really worried about the way I looked, not like Julia was, anyway. She worried so much about her appearance that I was surprised she had a worry surplus, but clearly she was concerned with ‘standards’ today, in the face of the arrival of what was, technically, our new boss.
I checked my reflection in the cake cover. Yup. I still looked like the Human Cannonball in a daft hat, but, short of a fairy godmother with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Clinique products and a robust approach to corsetry, that wasn’t going to change any time soon. A momentary wash of powerlessness swept over my linen-capped head. I needed this job, more than just about anyone else employed by Monkpark, I needed to stay. Yet I was the one nobody noticed – the one with the gritted teeth, carrying out the everyday tasks behind the scenes to keep the cafe running smoothly, cooking, serving, cleaning up – relied upon; as necessary as a Hoover, and given about as much attention. Although, I thought, adjusting my cap – although I didn’t really know why because nobody would notice whether I doffed or didn’t doff – my wheels were less likely to come off. I wasn’t even going to think about whether I sucked more than the average Hoover.
I was steeling myself to go out and meet the newcomer, and scolding myself internally for wondering whether ‘doff’ was strictly a verb, when the doors at the far end of the tearoom opened and Josh shambled in, shedding feathers like a werebudgie mid-change.
‘Any sign of Bane?’ I asked.
‘Mmm?’ Josh looked around and finally saw me. He’d clearly been lost in his own, quite bird-specific world, as usual. ‘Oh. Not yet. I’ve checked all round the estate, no sign. But she’s got a tracker on, I’m going to go and get the equipment and find her …’ He trailed off, once more subsumed into a place where falcons making off into the wide blue yonder was far more important than the arrival of some bloke, picked up a leftover muffin from the counter, and continued his amble out through the door by the kitchen. His hair was half on end, he hadn’t shaved for a while and his shirt was untucked at the back and flopped over the seat of his jeans like a gold-prospector’s ‘escape hatch’, but that was typical Josh. Nothing mattered but the birds. I didn’t think he’d ever actually looked me in the face since he’d arrived at the Hall in the winter, but I liked him. He didn’t leer past me at Jules, like a lot of the men who worked here – which always made me want to stand right in front of them, waving – or ta
lk to my, admittedly robust, chest. There was something gentle about him, something that made me think of the old china we had on the dresser in the cafe. Faded and fragile and a bit chipped around the edges.
I finally joined Julia in the gloriously oak-panelled Library. She was whispering conspiratorially with Wendy, who did admin and usually only worked mornings, and the motley collection of other people who worked at Monkpark Hall were milling around and making free with the Heritage Trust-provided glasses of celebratory wine that stood on side tables near the door. Clearly our new boss didn’t know much about his potential workforce or he would have kept it to chilled mineral water. Monkpark stood alone amidst its acres with no civilisation for seven miles – and for ‘no civilisation’ read ‘no pub’. The gardeners had already pinched a bottle and we were only moments away from having to fish them out of the verbena. James, who was in charge of the outside staff at the Hall, was turning a blind eye. In fact, he looked as though he might also have had more than one glass, and I was sure I could see a bulge in the pocket of his donkey jacket that might be a bottle ‘for later’.
‘Ahem.’ A cleared throat from the stairs that led up to the gallery. ‘Attention, please, everyone.’
‘Prat,’ muttered Julia from beside me, but with her mouth carefully tilted down into her wine glass, presumably in case our esteemed employer had ‘lip reading’ as one of his skills.
‘Boss prat though, Jules.’ I nodded towards the speaker being gradually revealed during his process down the polished oak of the staircase. He was very obviously someone whose previous exposure to the countryside had come from county shows and the odd point-to-point, judging from his clothing. Instead of warm, practical sweaters over rip-stop trousers he was wearing a beautifully cut hacking jacket, dark green moleskin chinos and the shiniest shoes I’d ever seen on someone not recently released from prison. His blond hair was immaculately cut into a short back and sides that my grandfather would have appreciated, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses, which emphasised fair-lashed eyes. He looked as if he’d walked off the cover of one of those magazines for people who like the idea of living in the country but can’t cope with the lack of broadband, rubbish mobile signals and mice in the larder.
Living in the Past Page 28