In the Time We Lost

by Carrie Hope Fletcher

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Time Travel Romance; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

The BRAND NEW NOVEL from Sunday Times bestselling author Carrie Hope Fletcher

'Our go-to for spellbinding stories with a magical edge' HEAT

'Enchanting' MIRANDA DICKINSON

'A beautiful writer' HARRIET EVANS

'Reminded me so much of Cecelia Ahern' ALI MCNAMARA

HOW MANY TIMES WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE?

Luna Lark used to love her name, but that was before people started saying it differently.

I'm so sorry, Luna.
Are you alright, Luna?
Everything will be okay, Luna.

Luna doesn't want pity, what she wants is a fresh start. Somewhere she can make headway on her next novel, mend her broken heart, and - most importantly - keep herself to herself.

For that Luna needs the most remote place she can find: Ondingside, a magical little island off the wild coast of Scotland. And when the town is cut off on her first night by a freak July snow storm it feels like fate.

But Luna soon realises that being a newcomer in a small town might not be the best way to blend in. People are curious about her - handsome, kind, coffee shop owner Beau in particular. Will history repeat itself or will they have a future?

Powerful, magical and utterly romantic, In the Time We Lost is an unforgettable love story that will take your breath away. Perfect for fans of Paige Toon and Giovanna Fletcher.

Release date: October 17, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

July 14th 2018

The clouds burst open like eggs being cracked for a cake. The rain came tumbling down onto her silver shoes as Luna Lark hoicked up her dress and swung her feet out of the car.

‘Did anyone bring a brolly?’ she laughed, looking up expectantly at her one and only bridesmaid.

‘Sorry.’ Lottie bit her lip, shielding her face with her silver clutch bag. ‘It was sunny when we left! I checked the weather on my phone and everything!’ Automatically, Lottie moved the clutch bag from over her own head to hover over Luna’s as she got out of the car. Luna’s peculiar naturally white hair fishtailed its way down her back and her blue eyes glistened as she looked up at the church.

‘Well … ’ Down the pathway to the doors of the church, she could see her fiancé’s brother and best man, Stephen, waiting for them. ‘It’s not far. I’ll just have to make a mad dash for it!’ Luna bundled up the skirt of her second-hand dress into her arms, pushed herself to standing and teetered down the cobbled pathway as quickly as she could. She giggled and shivered as the rain splashed her bare shoulders but it only lasted for a few seconds before she was safe under the archway next to Stephen. Stephen was short and wiry, not unlike his younger brother except Noel was taller and knew how to hold himself. Stephen, however, had all the charisma of a spider and, in the eight years that she’d been dating his brother, he had never warmed to Luna. That was just Stephen, though, she had always thought. He was distant and cold, yet strategic and pragmatic and he was always the one to call in a crisis. Stephen and Noel’s mother had once described Stephen as a ‘a funny fish’ and Luna couldn’t think of a better way to describe him. Now that he was to be her brother-in-law, she was ready to embrace his quirks and his chilly nature, once and for all.

‘Luna … ’ he started.

‘I know, I know, I’m a little late but you know me and driving. I must have made that poor driver go at about five miles per hour. I think the traffic behind us thought we were a hearse!’ She wiped her dress down as best she could. ‘How do I look?’ She twirled.

‘Beautiful, Luna,’ said Lottie as she joined them, wobbling slightly as one of her heels got trapped between the uneven paving stones.

‘Luna … ’ Stephen tried again.

‘Oh, your mum would be weeping right now if she were here!’ Lottie sobbed and lifted her bouquet to hide the sudden onslaught of tears.

‘I think Dad would be the one sobbing!’ Luna smiled but felt a lump fill her throat. ‘And Jeremy would just be laughing at them both.’

‘They’re all watching. Up there.’ Lottie pointed to the darkening clouds above them. ‘I just know it,’ she sniffed.

‘Yes, this rain is probably J’s doing!’ Luna peeked her head out from under the archway and lifted her gaze to the sky just as a large drop of rain splashed right between her eyes and slid down the bridge of her nose. ‘Thanks, bro!’ she laughed, giving the sky a thumbs-up.

‘Luna, are you even listening to me?’ Stephen huffed.

‘Yes, Stephen, but you’ve not said anything. I know I’m a little late but I honestly couldn’t have gotten here any faster. You know what I’m like!’

Once upon a time Luna had been an avid driver; knowing her getaway vehicle was always parked just outside was liberating. She’d drive anywhere and everywhere she possibly could, feeling cramped and nauseous in the passenger seat if anyone else ever insisted that they should be behind the wheel. Once upon a time, she probably would have wanted to drive herself to her own wedding. She’d scroll through songs on her iPod whilst driving, she’d answer text messages, even apply her lipstick in the rearview mirror without a second’s thought. She’d heard of the horrors of being complacent when driving, of course she had. Who hadn’t! But … she was a good driver! It would never happen to her! And she was right. It didn’t. It happened to her family.

She was eighteen years old and had been staying over at her boyfriend’s house when she had received the call. As the result of someone else’s arrogance behind the wheel, her mother, father and brother had been killed in a crash that totalled both vehicles. The other driver had been on the phone, and didn’t pause for even a split second before darting across a busy road. The speeding vehicle had hit the rear of her parents’ car, sending it spinning into the front garden of someone else’s house. Luckily the owners had been upstairs asleep when it happened, but had they been in their living room watching TV there might well have been more fatalities to add to an already too-long list. The car had been crushed entirely, like a giant had tried to turn it into an accordion. Her mum and dad, she was told, were killed instantly upon impact but her brother had held on just long enough for her to be able to say goodbye. Ultimately, he had died of his injuries in hospital.

‘But … I’m such a good driver,’ sobbed the defendant in court but no amount of tears or apologies would reverse that one fateful, fatal night. The night that had robbed Luna of her entire immediate family.

Luna mourned and tried her hardest to continue through life but it was difficult when she felt like she had nothing good to latch onto, no light at the end of a seemingly million-mile-long tunnel. Her mother’s twin brothers came and stayed for a while, their jolly nature helping to brighten her up as much as they were able and together they sorted out all the outstanding family affairs whilst sharing stories long into whiskey-fuelled nights. Stories that Luna had never heard. Wild tales of her parents’ past that they probably would have trusted her with when she was older than just eighteen but would now never be able to tell her themselves.

‘You know your mum used to smoke?’ Uncle Bryce said, sloshing more brown liquid into Luna’s glass.

‘You’re kidding,’ she sputtered.

‘Oh yeah! Like a chimney!’ Uncle Bill bellowed.

‘She could do all the tricks, too. Smoke rings, that French inhale thing … ’ Bryce swirled his fingers through the air.

‘Like Frenchie in Grease?’ Luna asked.

‘Isn’t that what Dave from next door used to call her?’

‘Yeah! That’s why!’ Bill sipped his drink.

‘Sure it is!’ Luna and Bryce howled and Bill couldn’t help but spray his whiskey into the air. Luna couldn’t have been more grateful for their company. However, as soon as they left, the weight of it all came plummeting down around her and she felt like she had very little in life to look forward to any more. So when her boyfriend Noel proposed, it felt like fate had intervened – and Luna was a big believer in fate. A ‘hopeless romantic’, as they say. She’d read every vaguely romantic novel the library carried by the time she was sixteen so it was no wonder that she now wrote them herself. She could dream up a romance between two unlikely lovers in moments and have the first draft of a novel done and dusted in six months. Although Noel had proposed a little half-heartedly, didn’t have a ring and most certainly wouldn’t have wanted to get his clean, pressed trousers dirty by getting down on one knee, Luna was still thrilled. With a job writing romantic fiction, she couldn’t wait to start a dream life with her new husband and leave all the horror behind her. If anyone deserved a little bit of happiness it was Luna. A new life, a new husband and one day a new house and children

… now, she felt like she had everything to live for.

‘Luna … he’s not here,’ Stephen blurted.

‘Who’s not here?’ Luna’s smile was still plastered on her face.

‘Noel.’ Stephen wiped his forehead with a flat hand. ‘Noel’s not here.’

‘Well, why not?’ she laughed, tapping an imaginary watch on her wrist. Something twinged in her gut: she wasn’t sure if it was panic or one of the bones in her second-hand dress poking through the fabric.

‘The traffic that side of town was a bit dodgy when I checked it out this morning.’ Lottie reached out for Luna’s shoulder. ‘He’ll be here soon!’

‘It wasn’t the traffic.’ Stephen shot Lottie a look under his untamed eyebrows.

‘He’s never late.’ Luna adjusted her veil.

‘He’s not late,’ Stephen said, shooting Luna the same look.

‘Well, then where is he?’ Lottie demanded. Stephen sighed. ‘Well?’

‘He’s … not coming.’ Stephen shrugged and with that, Luna’s ivory bubble burst … as did Lottie’s temper.

‘What do you mean he’s not coming?!’

‘He’s just not quite … ready.’ Stephen shrugged again.

‘That little shit! Urgh, I could just KILL him! I always knew he was a total weirdo – sorry, Luna – he was always acting aloof and he was a right arse at your birthday party! This is just the arrogant icing on a very gigantic cake made up of his bullshit! A bullshit cake! And I actually can’t believe that he would just … ’ Lottie wandered out into the rain to take out her anger with her clutch bag on the hydrangea trees that lined the path.

‘Luna, I’m sorry. He said to tell you he thought he was ready but he isn’t. He’s sorry, too.’ Stephen tilted his head and she wanted to punch the only-ever-so-slightly apologetic look off his face.

‘Let me speak to him.’ She could feel the sob rise in her throat.

‘He’s asked you not to call.’ Stephen checked his phone again, a message very clear on his screen.

‘Call? You mean he won’t even see me?’

‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t look up as he swiped to the right and tapped out a response.

‘You keep saying that.’

‘Because I am.’ He shrugged again.

‘Is that him?’ Luna leant over his arm but Stephen quickly returned his phone to his inside jacket pocket.

‘I’m sorry.’ He squeezed the top of her white lace-clad arm but Luna pulled out of his grip. Stephen rolled his eyes and had Luna not felt so elegant and demure in her dress, she was sure she would have hit him. He stepped out into the now-pouring shower and left Luna outside the church. A church filled with family and friends, waiting for a wedding that would never happen.



July 15th 2019

Louise? No. I knew a girl at school called Louise. Always used to chew with her mouth open. Billy? Too jovial. Robyn? With a Y? I suppose, but Starbucks would never get it right.

The world through the window was a miserable blue-tinged grey, the glass becoming increasingly spattered with rain the further north of Britain Luna rode. She was sure the man with his incessant snoring opposite her at their cramped train table, still clutching a map of Scotland in his hands as he snoozed, had missed his stop. John o’Groats was the last stop in Scotland before the tracks lurched out across the sea to their final destination: Ondingside. However, unable to bring herself to be the bearer of bad news, she sat quietly looking out of the window and let him, at the very least, have a peaceful sleep. Her phone buzzed and the name LOTTIE flashed up with a picture of the two of them, their arms wrapped around each other so tightly you couldn’t see whose belonged to whom. The contents of Luna’s stomach rose into her throat but she swallowed and turned the phone screen down onto the table.

I’ve always liked the name Persephone. Percy for short. Hardly less conspicuous than my real name, though, I guess. Plus, it means I wouldn’t be able to name my child that … but to have a child, I’d quite like a boyfriend to have that child with and the last one ran away …

Luna glanced down briefly at her new open notebook in which she’d written the date, a few potential names and doodled maybe a hundred crescent moons in the top left-hand corner. She flipped backwards a page where the vague beginnings of her new novel haphazardly appeared on the page, making little sense and giving her even less inspiration. The beginning of a novel was always the hardest for Luna. She’d written five books thus far and every time she was faced with the glaring blank page of a new notebook or her laptop, it was almost as if she couldn’t remember how she’d written novels before or how she could possibly write one again. Usually she had some vague central idea that she could write around but this time, she had zip. Once she made a start and got the ball rolling she knew she’d be okay but first she needed to figure out how exactly to roll the ball, and with deadlines looming in the near future, there was the undeniable flutter of panic in her stomach. Her notebook was as empty as her head.

A tragic love story in which one of them dies on the way to the church and the other is left waiting at the altar … no.

A funny love story in which an unlikely couple bond over their mutual love of stamp collecting but then one of them gets left at the altar and … nope.

A dystopian love story in which the population of Earth is shipped off to another planet where our heroine falls for someone of an alien species but when it comes to vowing to spend the rest of their lives together, the alien does a runner …. Okay, Luna, you need to stop.

All her ideas led back to her failed relationship but as Lottie had kept reminding her: ‘You weren’t technically left at the altar, so that idea needs to die. What is it they say? Write what you know? And you don’t know what it’s like to be left at the altar. Because you weren’t. It was just … I dunno … a near scrape with a dead-end future. Write about … I dunno … having a weird name. OR ME! Write about me!’ No one would want to read about her failed almost-marriage or all the tragedy that came before as much as she wouldn’t want to write about it. However, her creative juices had dried up and no other ideas would flow.

She closed the notebook and told herself that starting tomorrow wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. One more evening of leaving her notebook’s pages empty wasn’t going to tip the scales. She reached for her coffee cup and the raised semi-circle of shiny, white skin on the back of her right hand glistened in the harsh train lighting.

‘You’d think, as an author, I’d at the very least be able to pick a better name for myself than Luna,’ she muttered. She had been called Luna because of her crescent-moon-shaped birthmark on the back of her right hand, on the fleshy bit between her thumb and forefinger. It was light and shimmered like a stretch mark but hadn’t faded over the years. In fact, it only seemed to shine brighter.

‘Nah, it’s got nothing to do with that mark!’ her brother used to jibe. ‘It’s because you’re so dim and nowhere near as bright as the son!’ he’d laugh, gesturing to himself triumphantly.

‘Well, we were either going to call you Luna … ’ her mother would smile, ‘or Croissant.’

Once upon a time, she had loved her name. Luna Lark. Night and day. It held weight and had meaning. ‘With a name like that,’ people would say, ‘you could be a … ’ and they’d insert all manner of exciting jobs. News reporter, actress, astronaut … ! As a child, her schoolmates would relish calling out to her in the playground, like the word had magical powers. In a way, it did. It conjured up a friend, every time. Everyone wanted to be Luna’s friend. The mother of one of Luna’s classmates had thought that her daughter had made Luna up as an imaginary friend, not once considering a person could actually have such a unique name. Said mother had had quite a shock when her daughter brought home an actual child, for whom she hadn’t prepared dinner, on the assumption that imaginary friends didn’t need feeding. Even Luna’s parents seemed to swoon when they called her down for tea. Far from the hippies one would expect, her mother was a midwife, who’d heard women call their children far more extravagant and ridiculous things than ‘Luna’, and her father worked from home as a children’s author, who would name his characters far more extravagant and ridiculous things than ‘Luna’, too. Luna and her father would spend hours on sun loungers in the garden, under blankets in the pitch black of night, looking upwards for meteor showers or the International Space Station as it flew close enough to be seen. Whilst the bats dove for moths above them, he’d tell her stories of ‘Luna the Space Explorer’ and her alien friends who sailed on waves made of stars.

‘I think my love for outer space and the extraterrestrial became imprinted onto you, Luna. Quite literally,’ her father would say, taking her hand and kissing her crescent scar. ‘How lucky am I to have captured my very own little moonbeam.’

Moonbeam was his special nickname for her and had been ever since she was born. She loved it almost as much as she loved her official name. That was until people started saying it differently.

Luna, I’m so sorry.

That’s Luna. Poor Luna.

Are you all right, Luna?

Everything will be okay, Luna.

Luna. Luna. Luna.

The pity made her feel sick. The lilt in everyone’s voices and the sadness in their eyes made her want to shut her doors, bar her windows and never return to the outside world again. There was little satisfaction to be had from someone saying your name when no one ever said it with anything but sorrow. Luna had heard her own name said so many times in such a way that she’d rather be called Snoopy or Mickey Mouse or Velma Dinkley if it made people sound different when they spoke to her. Anything but Luna. She felt like she had become a creature that was able to suck the joy out of any room just by being present. She could be having one of her few and far between ‘okay days’ and yet she could sense the discomfort radiating from the people she knew when she passed them by. No one knew how to even be around her any more, let alone speak to her.

I don’t need a new name, she thought. If anyone asks, I’m Miss Lark and that’s that. No one needs to be on a first name basis, anyway. No one needs to get that close.

The train pulled into the station. Luna had thrown everything into her backpack, retrieved her case from the rack and was on the platform before the sleeping man had even been able to ask where he was. Luna pushed her bright orange ticket through the slot and stepped into the station. WELCOME TO ONDINGSIDE! was emblazoned across the exit but the sign was rusty and looked like it was one strong gust away from falling on the heads of travellers and so had very much lost the merry sentiment of ‘welcome’.

‘Home sweet home,’ she muttered, her breath swirling into the air in front of her.

‘Need any help, Miss?’ a man asked as she walked underneath the dodgy sign. He pushed off his cab and flicked the last of his cigarette to the curb, smoke still dripping from his mouth as he spoke.

‘I need to get to Nobody’s Inn?’ She showed him the map on her phone. He nodded and opened the boot. ‘I … I’ve been there before,’ she added.

‘Then you’ll know it’s not far from here,’ he said, giving her a hint of a smile. ‘’Bout a four-pound journey.’ She nodded back and climbed in the back of the cab.

Luna always lied and said she’d already visited whatever her destination, in order to avoid cabbies mounting up their fare by driving round in circles and ripping her off. This time, however, Luna wasn’t fibbing. Not only had she visited Ondingside before but she’d also stayed in Nobody’s Inn and every time her circumstances seemed more dire than the last.

‘Could you drive a little slower, please?’ Luna said when her stomach somersaulted as the car lurched around a roundabout, the right-hand-side tyres almost tipping off the tarmac. The driver grunted his response, although he still seemed to be taking the narrow country bends at an alarming pace, but before Luna could complain again, the familiar sight of a pub flashed past her window. The Green Arrow.

‘Urghh.’ She groaned at her stomach but more at the memory now swimming in a cider-soaked haze in her head.

A year ago, Luna had washed up in Ondingside with a ‘barely used’ wedding dress in her suitcase to sell and an empty ring finger. What had meant to be a romantic trip for two had turned into a very lonely and very nonrefundable solo getaway. When Luna had suggested going somewhere neither of them had ever been before, she had expected somewhere abroad. Her heart had sunk when she’d been presented with British train tickets but Luna told herself off for not being more specific and knew that Noel would have picked it as the cheapest option. Nothing, however, could have deflated her excitement. ‘I’m happy anywhere as long as I’m with you!’ she’d said, with hearts in her eyes. Noel grunted in reply.

Luna should have noticed that his enthusiasm wasn’t only lacking towards the trip but also towards their relationship. She definitely realised far too late that she wasn’t happy anywhere as long as she was with Noel because being anywhere with Noel usually meant she was worried he would be snippy with their waiter for forgetting to bring tap water to the table or be constantly watching her bank account with a furrowed brow because he was overly frugal with his own money and so never contributed to even the food in the fridge, let alone the bills for the house. She was always tense when he was close and often curating her real thoughts and feelings to avoid an argument that usually happened anyway. Even his justification for jilting her had been as weak and cowardly as his actions were. In his feeble and formal email, he’d used classic phrases such as ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ and ‘I just don’t think I’m mature enough yet’ and ‘Maybe in another world it would have been different’. She knew it would have been Stephen pushing him to explain and tie up loose ends, not a genuine apology. There wasn’t even the word sorry in sight. So, when she was sitting in what would have been their room, alone, she didn’t feel sad that he wasn’t there, but sad that she didn’t feel sad he wasn’t there. Luna wanted her fairytale happy-ever-after more than she had wanted Noel, which meant she’d put up with Noel in order to get it. It wasn’t right and she knew that now. She just wished she’d been stronger and let go of him sooner. Being alone was better than being with someone for the sake of it and so being alone was exactly what she would do. Lottie had offered to come with her so that they could turn it into a ‘drink-until-we-forget-what-he-looked-like’ trip but Luna insisted that she needed to clear her head, not cloud it, and that alcohol would be the last thing she turned to for pain relief from her aching heart. This was why Luna never told Lottie what happened on her first trip to Ondingside the year before her permanent move there and why Luna would never tell Lottie what actually happened …



July 15th 2018

The Nobody’s Inn looked very pub-like from the outside. It was small. So small, in fact, that Luna wondered how many rooms there could possibly be in order for it to classify as an inn. It was quaint, shabby and looked Tudor-built although whether that was authentic, Luna wasn’t sure. It seemed to be the only building for miles, plonked on a little hill overlooking the sea. The warm yellow light pouring out of its windows looked heaven-sent to Luna after the long journey, but the inn’s landlady had been over-familiar when she’d checked in. She’d asked too many questions . . .