The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip. Jenny Oliver
Welcome to Jenny Oliver’s brand new Cherry Pie Island series! There’s nowhere more deliciously welcoming...
The Cherry Pie Island series
The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café – Book 1
The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip– Book 2
The Great Allotment Challenge – Book 3
One Summer Night at the Ritz – Book 4
The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip is Book 2 in The Cherry Pie Island series.
The Parisian Christmas Bake Off
The Vintage Summer Wedding
The Little Christmas Kitchen
The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café (Cherry Pie Island Book 1)
And look out for the next two books in the Cherry Pie Island series, coming soon in summer 2015
The Great Allotment Proposal
One Summer Night at the Ritz
The Vintage
Ice Cream Van Road Trip
Cherry Pie Island
Jenny Oliver
Jenny Oliver
wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty.
Since then, Jenny has gone on to get an English degree, a Masters, and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels). Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks
Contents
Book List
Chapter One
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
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
‘Have a look! Have a look! Quickly! You’re going to crash… You’re going to crash! Have a LOOK! Oh god.’
Holly Somers started jogging up the river bank, shielding her eyes from the sun so she could see the full impact of the chaos on the water in front of her.
Two junior rowing eights were careering down the river, blades all askew, panicking from the adrenaline of the side-by-side race, the umpire shouting at their coxswains to get them to move apart from one another as their blades crashed, while the crowds on the bank were cheering and pointing or hiding their eyes with their hands, because they knew disaster was coming.
‘Crews, move apart!’ the umpire shouted again, waving his white flag, but no one was listening. This was the youngest Cherry Pie rowing team, the crew members just thirteen ‒ awkward, gangly and not the most accomplished ‒ and this was their first race. Panic had overtaken reason.
‘They’re gonna hit the bridge,’ said Holly’s dad, head coach of the senior rowers. He was cycling up to the start but had paused next to Holly.
Holly had her hands up to her face, ‘STOP!’ she shouted again from the bank but to no avail.
Everyone had come to watch. Martha and Annie, from the cafe, had stopped serving teas and had run over to the water’s edge in their aprons, the crews waiting to boat had abandoned their equipment and grouped together to point and peer and shout instructions at the tiny, inexperienced, panicking rowers on the water.
And then the inevitable happened, the two boats, locked together by their oars, hurtled into the bridge, the noise of wood splitting, carbon fiber cracking, disgruntled swans flapping, and the yelps and screams of eighteen thirteen year olds filled the warm late spring air. The spectators in the hospitality tent let out a great roar of delight. This is what they’d come for ‒ a bit of action and drama to go with their champagne.
Holly’s dad sped off on his bike to the finish line to orchestrate the rescue efforts. ‘That’s two grand’s worth of equipment written off, Holly,’ he threw back over his shoulder. ‘Maybe you should go back to rowing rather than coaching,’ he added with a dry laugh.
Holly refused to rise to the bait. Ever since she’d quit, post-Olympics, he’d taken every opportunity to encourage her back into a boat. He thought it was wasted talent. Wanted her to keep going forever. She hadn’t crushed his dream completely by telling him that stopping had been like taking off a pair of sunglasses. The world suddenly brighter, sharper, hers to explore however she wanted.
But then neither had she then been able to tell him that she’d possibly explored it a little too much. Been a little too free.
She jogged to where the launches were tied up and jumped into one of the boats. The kids in the water, over their panic, now thinking it was