Blurb:
Together since their teens, Molly and Jake have four
children, a house in a sleepy village and jobs that bore them to distraction.
Their marriage is an accident waiting to happen. When Nick arrives in Mayfield,
young, disturbed and in desperate need of mother-love, Molly doesn’t realise
that he will be the catalyst that blows everything apart. Add a headmaster
whose wife doesn’t understand him and Molly’s unpredictable, frustrated best
friend to the mix, and the blue touch paper has been well and truly lit.
Excerpt:
‘But who’s going to do our lunch if Mum’s staying in
bed?’ asks Max.
‘If people need
things putting in boxes, they’ll have to find them and put them in themselves
for once,’ says Jake through gritted teeth, as he tries to make toast, unload
the dishwasher, find clean socks for Hattie’s netball match and avoid the small
pile of cat-sick by the table leg. He sighs and mops up the squelchy mess on
the floor before Theo spreads it around the kitchen with her big boots.
It’s only the
third day of term so the foolproof system for school mornings hasn’t kicked in
yet. Even the two kittens look offended, meowing around Theo’s feet as she
rifles through her schoolbag for her lost homework.
Jake feels as
if he’s dropped into some alien, much less relaxing world. His early morning
routine usually involves sitting at the kitchen table drinking strong coffee
and keeping some kind of order while Molly dashes around serving up milky tea,
bacon sandwiches, and muesli. As she cling-films sandwiches, throws yogurts and
chocolate biscuits into plastic bags and sorts out last-minute crises, she
talks him through the day ahead. She likes him to know what’s going on.
Theo still
hasn’t found her homework. Jake and Molly’s eldest daughter is reasonably
chilled, as a rule, but today she’s in a filthy mood. Her form tutor has given
a final warning that if anyone else comes to school with purple streaks in
their hair, he’ll make them wear his grey woolly hat to lessons. Theo’s managed
to cover the offending bit of her fringe with black poster paint, having run
out of dye, but she knows if it rains things could go badly wrong.
Jake can hear
Theo muttering as she abandons the homework search and opens a tin of food for
the yowling kittens, gashing her finger in the process, and bleeding all over
Sam’s newly-made tuna sandwiches. She spits out all the rudest words she knows,
and so does Sam, which makes Hattie run round the table screaming, ‘He said the
“F” word, Dad, and she said “bugger”.’
Jake’s
patience, never his strong point, runs out. ‘At your age,’ he thunders, ‘me and
my little brother did all the chores for our mum before breakfast, went to
school without moaning, and then came back and did our paper rounds. We weren’t
spoiled like you lot – you’re all an absolute disgrace.’
Theo pulls
herself up to her full five feet four inches. She hasn’t been allowed to have a
paper round due to Molly’s fear of possible rapists and muggers on the loose.
It’s a peaceful village normally, but there’s a first for everything.
Author Bio:
Celia J Anderson loves
cake, champagne and her family, although not in that order. Moondancing is the
first book she ever completed but it needed a couple of years relaxing in the
cupboard before it was ready to be revamped to follow Sweet Proposal, Little
Boxes and Living the Dream out into the world.
One eighth of the
Romaniacs, to be found at https://theromaniacgroup.wordpress.com, Celia regularly blogs with this sparkling
group of writers who support each other through the journey to publishing and
beyond. Her ultimate aims are to spend less time on Facebook, have a few less
chins and to walk five miles a day - she feels the three may be connected...
No comments
Post a Comment