Twelve Days of Christmas: A bestselling Christmas read to devour in one sitting!. Trisha Ashley

      TRISHA ASHLEY

       Twelve Days of Christmas

      Copyright

      Published by Avon an imprint of

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street,

      London, SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2010

      This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2017

      Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2010

      Cover illustration © Robyn Neild

      Cover layout design © Debbie Clements

      Trisha Ashley 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: 9781847561152

      Ebook Edition © October 2010 ISBN: 9780007412297

      Version: 2017-10-26

      Dedication

      For my good friends and fellow 500 Club members,

       Leah Fleming and Elizabeth Gill, with love.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Prologue - The Ghost of Christmas Past

      Chapter 1 - Pregnant Pause

      Chapter 2 - Little Mumming

      Chapter 3 - Weasel Pot

      Chapter 4 - Rose of Sharon

      Chapter 5 - Hot Mash

      Chapter 6 - Horse Sense

      Chapter 7 - The Whole Hog

      Chapter 8 - Deep Freeze

      Chapter 9 - Daggers

      Chapter 10 - Wrung

      Chapter 11 - Slightly Tarnished

      Chapter 12 - Deeply Fruited

      Chapter 13 - Christmas Spirits

      Chapter 14 - Toast and Treacle

      Chapter 15 - Advent

      Chapter 16 - Comfort

      Chapter 17 - Rapping

      Chapter 18 - Ice Maiden

      Chapter 19 - I Should Coco

      Chapter 20 - Flickering

      Chapter 21 - Loathe at First Sight

      Chapter 22 - Outcomes

      Chapter 23 - Pieced Together

      Chapter 24 - Birkin Mad

      Chapter 25 - Christmas Carol

      Chapter 26 - Socked

      Chapter 27 - Knitting

      Chapter 28 - Christmas Present

      Chapter 29 - Abominable

      Chapter 30 - A Bit of a Poser

      Chapter 31 - Fool’s Gold

      Chapter 32 - Puzzle Pieces

      Chapter 33 - Turning Turkey

      Chapter 34 - Slightly Thawed

      Chapter 35 - Acted Out

      Chapter 36 - Piked

      Chapter 37 - Bumps

      Chapter 38 - Photo-Finish

      Chapter 39 - Signs and Portents

      Chapter 40 - Twelfth Night

      Acknowledgments

       Keep Reading …

       About the Author

       By the same author

       About the Publisher

      Prologue

       The Ghost of Christmas Past

      Even though it was barely December, the hospital ward had been decked out with a tiny tree and moulded plastic wall decorations depicting a fat Santa, with bunchy bright scarlet cheeks and dark, almond-shaped eyes. He was offering what looked like a stick of dynamite to Rudolf the very red-nosed reindeer, but I expect you need explosive power to deliver all those presents in one single night.

      My defence strategy for the last few years has been to ignore Christmas, shutting the door on memories too painful to deal with; but now, sitting day after day by the bed in which Gran dwindled like snow in summer, there seemed to be no escape.

      Gran, who brought me up, would not have approved of all these festive trappings. Not only was she born a Strange Baptist, but had also married a minister in that particularly austere (and now almost extinct) offshoot of the faith. They didn’t do Christmas in the way everyone else did – with gifts, gluttony and excess, so as a child, I was always secretly envious of my schoolfriends.

      But then I got married and went overboard on the whole idea. Alan egged me on – he never lost touch with his inner child, which is probably why he was such a brilliant primary school teacher. Anyway, he loved the whole thing, excess, gluttony and all.

      So I baked and iced spiced gingerbread stars to hang on the tree, which was always the biggest one we could drag home from the garden centre, together with gay red and white striped candy canes, tiny foil crackers and twinkling fairy lights. Together we constructed miles of paper chains to festoon the ceilings, hung mistletoe (though we never needed an excuse to kiss) and made each other stockings full of odd surprises.

      After the first year we decided to forgo a full traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings in favour of roast duck with home-made bottled Morello cherry sauce, which was to become my signature dish. (I