The Perfect Match?. Penny Jordan
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Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author
PENNY JORDAN
Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!
Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.
This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.
Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon's most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan's characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.
Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.
Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women's fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Perfect Match?
Penny Jordan
MILLS & BOON
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The Crighton Family
BEN CRIGHTON: Proud patriarch of the family, a strong- minded character in his seventies, determined to see his dynasty thrive and prosper.
RUTH REYNOLDS: Ben’s sister, a vibrant woman now happily reunited with Grant, the man from whom she was tragically separated during the war years—and also with the daughter she gave up for adoption. Ruth is a caring, perceptive woman and she holds the Crighton family together.
JON AND JENNY CRIGHTON: Steady, family-oriented couple. Jon keeps the Crighton law firm running smoothly, and Jenny is a partner in a local antiques business with Guy Cooke. Guy helped Jenny through difficult times in her marriage. He has always been close to Jenny, and they have a strong friendship.
MAX CRIGHTON: Son of Jon and Jenny, a self-assured, sexy, ruthlessly ambitious lawyer who married his wife, Madeleine, a gentle woman and daughter of a High Court judge, to advance his career. The couple lives in London with their two children, but Madeleine has concerns about the stability of their marriage....
ROSE OLDHAM: Rose had connections with the Crighton family when she was growing up—as did her mother and grandmother. But she’s since moved away from the area and is reluctant to return to Haslewich when her brother dies, sending her daughter Chrissie instead.
CHRISSIE OLDHAM: Rose’s daughter, a spirited but romantic English teacher who is convinced her ideal hero just doesn’t exist. She longs for a passionate, unconventional man—and is astonished when she arrives in Haslewich to be swept off her feet by the broodingly sensual Guy Cooke....
GUY COOKE: Jenny’s partner in a successful antiques business, Guy is close to the Crighton family and very loyal to Jenny. He has Gypsy ancestors and is devastatingly sexy and adored by women. Fiery and impetuous, he’s the exact opposite of gentle Chrissie—but feels an instant bond when he meets her.
CHAPTER ONE
‘AND you’re sure you don’t mind going to Haslewich to sort out everything...?’
‘No, Mum, I don’t mind at all,’ Chrissie assured her mother quietly, exchanging looks over her head with her father as she did so.
It was no secret in their small, close-knit family unit just how much her younger brother’s irresponsible behaviour and alcoholic lifestyle had upset Chrissie’s mother.
In the early years of her marriage she had tried her best to help Charles, naively believing that he was genuinely trying to mend his ways. But eight years ago, following a short custodial sentence after he had been convicted of stealing several small items from the home of an acquaintance, which he had later sold to pay for the drink on which he was by then dependent, Chrissie’s mother had decided that enough was enough and had cut herself off from him completely.
Chrissie understood just why she had felt compelled to do so.
Her father was a hard-working heart surgeon in a busy local hospital in the small Scottish border town where they lived and her mother was a member of the local town council and involved in several local charities.
Her brother’s unsavoury reputation and dishonest behaviour was so completely opposite to her own way of life that it was very hard for her to deal with the situation.
Now though, Uncle Charles was dead and someone, one of them, would have to travel to Cheshire to sort things out, dispose of the small property he had owned in the centre of the town of Haslewich—all that was left from his share of the farmhouse and land that he and Chrissie’s mother had inherited from their parents, and Chrissie had volunteered to take on the task.
‘Heaven knows what kind of state the house will be in.’ Chrissie’s mother gave a small shudder. ‘The last time I was there the whole place was filthy and you couldn’t open a single cupboard door without an empty bottle falling out.
‘I just wish I knew why he...’ She closed her eyes. ‘Even as a child he was different...awkward...selfdestructive, very different from our father. He was such a kind, gentle man like my grandfather, but Charles... We were never very close as children, perhaps because of the big age gap between us.’ She shook her head.
‘I feel guilty about letting you go down to Haslewich on your own but we’ve got this conference in Mexico followed by your father’s lecture tour.’
‘Look, Mum, it’s all right,’ Chrissie reiterated. ‘I don’t mind, honestly,