Can love flourish amongst the tree tops?
When pastry chef Twilight Wilson was a young girl, she would hide from school bullies up in the treehouse at the bottom of her garden in her family home in Sussex. It was her special place, and even as an adult she still loves it.
So when her family tell her they can’t afford to live there any more, Twilight is devastated. Not only will they lose their home – but the treehouse too!
She comes up with a plan to save the family home – she’ll start up a cafe in the treehouse! It’s a brilliant idea, and excitement builds as she starts planning the menus, with the help of Theo – a rather attractive man from the gym. But when former school bully Lucy finds out the plan, she starts plotting – and opens her own rival cafe in the village!
Can Twilight save her family home? Will her friendship with Theo ever be anything more? And who will win the cafe wars?
Catherine Ferguson is back in this hilarious, heart-warming read perfect for summer.
Excerpt
At eleven, I switch off the TV and head upstairs to my old room with the single bed and the complete works of J. K. Rowling dominating the bookshelves.
The house phone rings by the bed and I dive on it, knowing who it will be. No one else would call so late and expect me to answer.
It’s my old school friend, Paloma, who’s been in a state of high excitement ever since I phoned to tell her I was coming back to live in Hart’s End. Paloma always cheers me up, and we’ve been the best of friends ever since the day I discovered she was using the same trick as me to get out of PE at school – faking a twisted ankle. We both got away with it and spent the rest of the day trying to outdo each other on the hobbling front and escaping to the loos to squeal with laughter.
‘You’ve arrived!’ she cheers. ‘When can I come round?’
I laugh. ‘Not now. And not because I don’t want to see you, but because I’m planning on being fast asleep in about – ooh – three minutes.’
Paloma is very much a night owl, still full of life in the late evening when most people are drifting off in front of the TV. (Mornings, she resembles a creature from the deep. Silent but scary.)
‘I didn’t mean tonight. You must be absolutely shattered. How was your journey? Boring, I imagine.’
A memory flashes into my head. Theo making his comment about celery being one hundred per cent not pizza and winking at me.
‘Actually, no, it was okay,’ I muse. ‘There was this bloke called Theo who helped me off with my case. Otherwise I’d have missed the stop.’
‘Theo, eh? Tell me more.’
Her tone is loaded with innuendo and heat floods into my cheeks. ‘Nothing to tell. He’s just … um … nice.’
‘Nice? Is that all?’
‘And quirky. He was reading a book about crochet.’
She laughs. ‘He sounds fascinating. And how’s your dad?’
‘Oh, you know. Putting on a brave face, I think. They both are,’ I say, relieved she’s dropped the subject of Theo.
‘Your dad is just the best. Remember he used to cut sticks of rhubarb from the garden and give us a little bag of sugar each to dip it in? We must have been about ten.’ She sighs. ‘Those were the days.’
I laugh. ‘Yeah, and when you crunched it, you felt like you were stripping the enamel off your teeth. And if you ate too much you were awake all night with a sore stomach. Those “good old days” had a lot to answer for!’
Paloma gets quite sentimental over her childhood, but as my own memories tend to feature a lot of Lucy Slater in a starring role, I much prefer to look to the future.
We decide to meet for brunch at eleven, and I switch off the light, feeling so much better for having spoken to her. Coming back to Hart’s End alone, without Paloma in my corner, would have been a whole lot more difficult …
No comments:
Post a Comment