Summer at Coastguard Cottages. Jennifer Bohnet

      

       A summer of secrets!

      Karen is escaping to her little cottage on the Devonshire coast this summer – it’s the perfect way to forget about her ex-husband. So she’s surprised to find love again when she least expected it!

      Bruce is learning to live again after the death of his beloved wife. She loved their cottage by the sea but Bruce is torn by the bitter sweet memories – should he sell up and stay in the city?

      Carrie is at a crossroads in her life after inheriting a fortune from the father she never met. Now she must make a life-changing decision that will affect her new friends, too…

       Could eight weeks at Coastguard Cottages change all of their lives – forever?

       Escape to the seaside this summer with Jennifer Bohnet’s fabulously feel-good beach read! Perfect for fans of Debbie Johnson, Ellen Berry and Caroline Roberts.

       Summer at Coastguard Cottages

      Jennifer Bohnet

      ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

      Copyright © Jennifer Bohnet 2017

      Jennifer Bohnet asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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.

      E-book Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 978-0-00-826271-6

       Version: 2018-01-23

      Contents

       Cover

       Blurb

       Title Page

Copyright

       Author Bio

       Acknowledgements

       Dedication

July

Week One

       Week Two

       Week Three

       Week Four

       August

       Week One

       Week Two

       Week Three

       Week Four

       Excerpt

       Endpages

       JENNIFER BOHNET

      is originally from the West Country but now lives in the wilds of rural Brittany, France. She's still not sure how she ended up there! The saying ‘life is what happens while you're deciding what to do…’ is certainly true in her case. She's always written alongside having various jobs: playgroup leader, bookseller, landlady, restauranteur, farmer's wife, secretary – the list is endless but does provide a rich vein of inspiration for her stories.

      For three years she wrote a newspaper column in the South Hams Group of Newspapers (Devon) where she took a wry look at family life. Since living in France it is her fiction that has taken off with hundreds of short stories and several serials published internationally.

      Allergic to housework and gardening she rarely does either, but she does like cooking and entertaining and wandering around vide greniers (the French equivalent of flea markets) looking for a bargain or two. Her children currently live in fear of her turning into an ageing hippy and moving to Totnes, Devon.

      To find out more about Jennifer visit her website at jenniferbohnet.com or chat to her on Twitter at @jenniewriter.

      Thanks to all the team at HQ Digital/HarperCollins but in particular big thanks go to my editor Charlotte Mursell – Charlotte you rock!

      I also have to give a big shout out to all my on-line friends, bloggers, fellow authors and readers. I've only met a tiny, tiny percentage of you in Real Life but your friendship and encouragement inspire and keep me motivated. Thank you.

      For my husband Richard with love.

July

       I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

      (Stephen Covey)

Week One

      Ten days earlier, when Carrie Penfold had gone home for Sunday lunch, Elizabeth, her mother, had handed her a thick, official-looking envelope.

      ‘This arrived on Friday for you.’

      ‘Postmarked Bristol,’ Malcolm, her father, said in his slow Somerset way of speaking. ‘Looks important. We had to sign for it.’

      Elizabeth handed her the paperknife from the bureau. ‘You’d best open it. No point in playing guessing games.’

      Carefully slitting the envelope open, Carrie pulled out the letter. The clearly expensive and embossed, cream-coloured paper, had the name of a firm of lawyers printed across the top.

      Carrie quickly scanned the typewritten