Christmas on Rosemary Lane. Ellen Berry
SNOWDROPS ON ROSEMARY LANE
Ellen Berry
Published by AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019
Copyright © Ellen Berry 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Ellen Berry asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008157166
Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008157173
Version: 2019-09-06
In memory of Margery Taylor
11.11.35 – 11.11.18
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: 30 Years Ago
Part One: A New Venture
Chapter One: Now
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two: A Year Later
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Part Three: October
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Ellen Berry
About the Publisher
She scrambled over the high garden wall, scuffing her bare shins. She shouldn’t have been there, but that was part of the thrill. Lucy Riddock and her friends were on a fruit-finding mission, and they knew there were redcurrant bushes here. They also knew the old woman whose house it was would go berserk if she saw them.
At least, she seemed old to Lucy, who had just turned ten; at that age, even forty seems ancient. The children certainly knew Kitty Cartwright was prone to outbursts of rage, and that only served to heighten their excitement. It wasn’t the first time they had done this. Tellingly, it had never occurred to them to steal berries from anyone else.
Lucy had joined forces with a boy called Hally, which she assumed was a nickname but never thought to ask, as that’s what everyone called him. Sometimes, there were others; namely Brenna, Toni and Peter Linton, a trio of siblings with vivid red hair and many guinea pigs. On this occasion, they all jumped down onto the overgrown lawn and darted behind the shed.
Unlike Lucy, who came from a nondescript suburb of Leeds, the others lived here in Burley Bridge. She was just visiting; these were the holiday friends she had met the previous summer, and there had been no contact since then. In those days that was normal. It would be a long time until everyone was easily contactable at all times. Three weeks were all they had together while Lucy stayed with her kind but rather staid and