The Christmas Surprise
Read The Christmas Surprise Online
Authors: Jenny Colgan
Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Romance, #Contemporary, #General
‘This funny, sweet story is Jenny Colgan at her absolute best’
Heat
‘She is very, very funny’
Express
‘A delicious comedy’
Red
‘Fast-paced, funny, poignant and well observed’
Daily Mail
‘Sweeter than a bag of jelly beans … had us eating up every page’
Cosmopolitan
‘A smart, funny story laced with irresistible charm’
Closer
‘Chick-lit with an ethical kick’
Mirror
‘A quirky tale of love, work and the meaning of life’
Company
‘A smart, witty love story’
Observer
‘Full of laugh-out-loud observations … utterly unputdownable’
Woman
‘A fabulously sweet concoction of warmth, wit and lip-smacking childhood treats’
Candis
A chick-lit writer with a difference … never scared to try something different, Colgan always pulls it off’
Image
‘A Colgan novel is like listening to your best pal, souped up on vino, spilling the latest gossip – entertaining, dramatic and frequently hilarious’
Daily Record
‘An entertaining read’
Sunday Express
‘Part-chick lit, part-food porn … this is full on fun for foodies’
Bella
Amanda’s Wedding
Talking to Addison
Looking for Andrew McCarthy
Working Wonders
Do You Remember the First Time?
Where Have All the Boys Gone?
West End Girls
Operation Sunshine
Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend
The Good, the Bad and the Dumped
Meet Me at the Cupcake Café
Christmas at the Cupcake Café
Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams
Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris
Little Beach Street Bakery
Published by Sphere
ISBN: 978-0-7515-5396-3
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Jenny Colgan 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Sphere
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Life is sweet with Jenny Colgan
Dedicated to the memory of Ali Gunn,
1968–2014
Okay, so normally I think, oh, introductions, these things are FULL of spoilers, and generally skip them.
But whether you are a complete newbie to the world of Rosie Hopkins, or read the last one a year ago, I would say, honestly, read this bit. I won’t spoil a thing, and it might well be really useful.
Now, I love a series of books as much as the next person. I grew up slavishly devoted to Malory Towers, the Chalet School, the Dark is Rising and the Chronicles of Narnia, and as an adult I am equally enamoured of Shopaholic, Game of Thrones, Rebus and so on.
BUT. There is a problem writing books in a series. First of all, can people come straight in without having read the earlier ones? (For example, you’re always going to have a good time with
In the Fifth at Malory Towers
, whereas I’d really really recommend you start with the very first of the Gormenghast trilogy, and even after that concentrate quite hard.)
And secondly, how do you quickly catch up when you
have
read the others? (Actually, Jen, believe it or not we do actually have other things to do in our lives apart from memorise the names and whereabouts of every single character in your novels. Seriously? You do?
☺
)
So, aha! Here is something I really hope will help: my as-yet-unpatented Colgan OmniSequeliser. Glance down the bold headings, and all your questions will be, hopefully, anticipated and answered, whether you’re a total newbie or you’ve read one or both of the previous novels (if you’re reading all three over a big weekend splurge, I grant you permission to skip this bit).
SO. There is a summary of important bits, a full character list, a family tree, a map, and everything else I can think of so that I don’t spoil your enjoyment of the book by having a character walk by and casually dump tons of exposition on you like a dog having a spew. You know the kind of thing I mean: ‘Hi, Stephen, how are you?’ ‘Well I’m fine, thanks, after my terrible flashbacks to my landmine accident in Africa, triggered by that lorry crash at the school that gravely injured nine-year-old Edison, who’s also making a good recovery, thank you so much. How are you?’ I’m going to try very hard not to do that.
Then I am off to market the Colgan OmniSequeliser to
Dragons’ Den
. Except that my favourite was sexy stern American Doug with the glasses, and he doesn’t do it any more. I don’t like Duncan, he’s creepy.
Okay, time to put on my deep, dooming voice: PREVIOUSLY, in the world of ROSIE HOPKINS …
Rosie Hopkins was an auxiliary nurse working in London and living with her boyfriend Gerard when she had to move to a tiny village in Derbyshire to look after her ageing great-aunt Lilian.
She was dreading it to begin with and thought she’d stay for five minutes, but she fell in love with the little town – and with Stephen, the son of the local posh family. He was shut up in the desolate Peak House, nursing a wound he’d received when he’d been working as a teacher in Africa for Médecins Sans Frontières (his father had wanted him to join the army, but he wouldn’t). He’d been blown up by a landmine that killed the two small boys he was with. The guilt had haunted him ever since. Meeting Rosie helped to lift him out of this, but it is still, sometimes, a struggle.
His mother, Lady Lipton, has never quite forgiven him for following his vocation into teaching. His father died whilst Stephen was in hospital overseas; she knows she shouldn’t blame Stephen for this, but she does, a little.
Rosie, on the other hand, has flourished in Lipton. She has revitalised the sweetshop and turned it into a magnet for town gossip and treats, and met many good and true friends in the little community (she has also made one or two enemies, including Roy Blaine, the evil town dentist). She still cannot get used to country ways, but she loves Stephen and Lilian so much, she reckons this probably won’t matter.
Rosie and Stephen got engaged at Christmas – yay!
Lilian was born in the little cottage in Lipton that Rosie now lives in, and spent all her life there until very recently, when she moved to a really nice and very expensive old people’s home.
When she was a teenager in the war, she fell madly in love with a local boy, Henry Carr. Their short but serious romance was blighted when they found out he’d accidentally got another girl – Ida Delia, Lilian’s erstwhile best friend – pregnant before he and Lilian got together. Being Henry, he did the right thing and married Ida Delia, a marriage that was not happy, before he was lost in the war. Lilian mourned him all her life. That marriage produced a daughter, Dorothy Isitt, who still lives in the village.
Amazingly, last year, Henry was found: he had suffered head injuries and amnesia, and had started a new life on the other side of the dales. He and Lilian were reunited at the very end of his life, which Lilian mostly thinks is better than nothing.
Lady Lipton lives in the huge crumbling Lipton Hall, which costs a fortune and is falling down. Stephen used to live in a tied house, Peak House, which belongs to his mother’s estate and is a formidable and draughty place on top of the downs. Now, however, he has moved in with Rosie. Rosie lives in Lilian’s tiny but cosy cottage, right next door to the sweetshop, and Lilian has moved to the old folk’s home.
Well I’m glad you asked. There’s Angie, Rosie’s warmhearted, flirty mother, who brought Rosie and her brother Pip up single-handedly. She now lives with Pip and his wife Desleigh and their three children, Shane, Kelly and Meridian, in sunny Australia, and wishes Rosie lived there too.
Stephen’s mother is Lady Lipton, feared doyenne of the town, who lives alone at Lipton Hall. She is snobby, difficult and looks down on Rosie. She does love Stephen really, but their relationship can be fractious. Stephen also has an elder sister called Pamela, who lives in America.
Rosie’s best friend in Lipton – and occasional colleague – is Moray, the handsome GP, who is still keeping his boyfriend under wraps, fearing village gossip more than is actually necessary. Moray and Stephen fell out when Moray didn’t want to go to Africa to work with him. They are (occasionally grudging) friends again because they both care about Rosie. Rosie sometimes uses her nursing experience to help Moray out in a crisis.
Tina works in the sweetshop with Rosie, and is engaged to the lovely local farmhand, Jake. They are getting married this year too, and Tina is wildly overexcited about it. She has twins, Kent and Emily, from a previous relationship. Then there is Edison, a very literal nine-year-old who lives with his New Age parents and baby sister Marie in a cottage in the woods. Last year he was involved in a terrible accident, but he is healing well.
Rosie moved to Lipton two years ago, and this book opens after Christmas, when Stephen proposed to her. She has been pretty much on cloud nine ever since.
So, now you are ready for
The Christmas Surprise
! But if there is anything you feel I haven’t covered, tweet me right now on
@jennycolgan
and I’ll endeavour to get back to you at full speed.
My very very warmest wishes to you and yours over this festive season.