Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2019
Copyright © Celia Anderson 2019
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Jane Morley/Trevillion Images (main image), Ebru Sidar/Trevillion Images (envelope); Johnny Ring Photography and Shutterstock.com (additional images)
Celia Anderson 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: 9780008305413
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008305420
Version: 2019-03-11
For Ray, my memory maker
O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free
And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time
Across the carolling meadows into June.
‘Memory’ – Siegfried Sassoon
Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. And even loved in spite of ourselves.
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Book Club Questions
A Q&A with Celia Anderson
Recipe: Spicy Fish Pie
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
May Rosevere sits on the sun-warmed decking, watching the tide creep in. She does this most days if it’s convenient, but the trouble with tide times is that they will keep on changing. If it’s cold, May wraps herself in an ancient baby shawl to sit in her swing seat. The memories have faded from the wool, and the baby who wore it must be thirty by now, but it still makes her feel cosseted. She doesn’t need the shawl today. Summer is in the air and the garden around her granite cottage is looking green and lush.
A man with a neat grey beard wanders along the beach. Tristram, thinks May, waving her handkerchief. He doesn’t see her – his hat is pulled down over his ears and he’s too busy throwing a bright red ball into the sea to look up towards May’s place. The man’s black Labrador looks at him in disgust and ignores the ball. His smaller, biscuit-coloured dog isn’t any more enthusiastic,