Paradise House

by Erica James

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Angel Sands is an old fashioned seaside resort of bed and breakfasts, cottages to let and teashops. And with the best views of the tiny beach is Paradise House, home to the Baxter girls.

With their mother taking time out to find herself, it's down to them to maintain the smooth running of the family owned bed and breakfast.

Not an easy task given that their father - now that his wife isn't around - has suddenly become a moving target for the opposite sex...

A W. F. Howes audio production.

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 448

Sample

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Chapter One

August 1939

‘There she is, the scarlet woman herself.’

‘She’s back then.’

‘Back to flaunt herself right under our noses. She’s no shame, that one.’

‘No shame at all.’

‘She’s a fast one and make no mistake.’

‘And just look what she’s done to the running of Island House, got rid of Mr Devereux’s old housekeeper, maid and cook as soon as she had her feet firmly under the table, didn’t she? Brought in her own staff too.’

‘We all know what that means. She has that Mr Devereux right where she wants him.’

‘Under her thumb,’ said three voices in unison. ‘That’s where.’

The three women watched with hostile curiosity the progress of the open-topped red sports car that had just been driven at breakneck speed into the market square of the village. With an abruptness that implied the driver had stopped on a sudden whim, the car skidded to a halt.

They continued to watch as the young woman threw open the driver’s door and leapt to her feet with a vibrant and youthful energy. In her early thirties and undeniably attractive, she was exactly the sort to turn heads. Her clothes were expensive and well cut and she carried herself with confidence and an easy grace. Tall and slender, with dark hair making a bid for freedom from beneath a silk scarf, she hooked a handbag over one of her bare arms, removed her sunglasses and entered Teal’s grocery shop.

Minutes later, she emerged into the August sunshine with a paper bag from which she pulled out a peach, biting into it with undisguised delight. As she paused on the pavement to relish the moment, licking the juice from her painted red lips and smiling happily to herself, the three disapproving women sitting at their table in the window of the Cobbles Tea Room shook their heads and shuddered collectively.

‘Mark my words, no good will come of that one,’ said Elspeth Grainger.

‘Never does when you live in sin,’ said Ivy Swann.

‘That’s what comes of writing those dreadful books,’ said Edith Lawton. ‘All that blood and twisted thinking, it warps the mind.’

In full accord, the three women shuddered again.

Romily Temple was well acquainted with the coven of Melstead St Mary who daily occupied the best table in the Cobbles Tea Room in order to carry out their malicious brand of espionage. Not for a second did she doubt the depths to which they would go in order to establish everybody’s business, or, more particularly, the contempt in which they held her.

With a roar of engine, Romily gaily waved to the three women and, still eating the peach, drove out of the cobbled market square ringed with a topsy-turvy assortment of shops and cottages, some with thatched roofs. . .