Another Day in Winter - blog tour

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Another Day in Winter – Shari Low

About the author

Shari has written seventeen novels under her own name and pseudonyms Ronni Cooper, Millie Conway and Shari King, of which many have been published globally. She writes a weekly opinion column and Book Club page for the Daily Record. Shari lives with her husband and 2 teenage boys in Glasgow.

Follow Shari

Twitter handle: @sharilow

Facebook: @sharilowbooks

Website: www.sharilow.com

About the book

On a chilly morning in December… Forever friends Shauna and Lulu touch down at Glasgow Airport on a quest to find answers from the past.

George knows his time is nearing the end, but is it too late to come to terms with his two greatest regrets?

His Grandson Tom uncovers a betrayal that rocks his world as he finally tracks down the one that got away.

And single mum Chrissie is ready to force her love-life out of hibernation, but can anyone compare to the man who broke her heart?

After the success of the No1 best seller ONE DAY IN DECEMBER, comes the second unmissable read in Shari Low’s Winter Day trilogy.

Buy links

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2w3R9o2
iBooks: https://apple.co/2MuCsV9

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2wlC2oX
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2OZs707

EXTRACT

Shauna slipped her phone into her bag, her fingers touching the letters as she did so. They were old, written back in the fifties, way before Shauna was born. She’d read them so often she knew them off by heart, but there was one that she thought of more than the others, one that had lingered in her mind long after she’d read it.

32 Parkland Street

Glasgow

Dear Annie,

Forgive me. I know that is more than I deserve, and that I have no right to ask… I have no defence for what I did to you, no excuses for my actions, for I always knew he was yours. I can only hope that in time the pain of my betrayal will lessen and you’ll find a way to think of me fondly once again.

Sorry.

Your sister,

Flora

The first time Shauna had read it, she’d flinched as she got to the end. Your sister. How many times over the years had Annie made the comment that one of the things they had in common was that they had no siblings? And yet, there it was. Your sister.

And Flora wasn’t the only one. In the letters, Shauna had discovered an entire family. As far as she could tell, there were three siblings in total – two sisters and one brother – her brother and sister both a similar age to Annie. Parents were mentioned too. It was all there – Annie had a family, one that she had left and never went back to. And Shauna wanted to know why.

Actually, it was more than that. She wanted a connection to someone. Anyone. She wanted to give Beth relatives, history, a family tree, now that there was just the two of them. They travelled to Dublin to see Colm’s family in Ireland once a year but they’d never been close and they rarely heard from them between visits. The only living relative Shauna now had was her mum, Debbie, and that paragon of self-centred shallowness was currently living in Marbella with a wealthy, paunchy, retired businessman who looked exactly like Shauna’s late father and – like her dad – spent his days playing golf. Shauna received the occasional call from her in the rare moments her mother had free between shopping, spa days and throwing dinner parties for other expats who were exactly like them – wealthy, entitled, and totally self-indulgent. Debbie was no loss; Shauna had always fell somewhere below international travel, a daily blow-dry and early evening gin and tonics on her priority list. That’s why Annie, her dad’s mother, had stepped in and been more of a parent than the DNA donors that created her.

A surrogate parent who had, it now seemed, told her a pack of lies about her background. Disbelief had come first, then a flash of intrigue, with a topping of incredulity. Annie was the most forthright, honest, loving and loyal person Shauna had ever known, so if she’d kept this a secret there must be a good reason why.

The mystery had nibbled at Shauna’s curiosity, so when Rosie had scooped Beth away for a weekend of commercialised cartoon characters, she’d thought about coming here for the first time, but a booking by one of her regular clients to provide a Christmas lunch for thirty had stopped her. She’d scaled back her catering business after she became Beth’s sole caretaker. Gone were the children’s birthday parties, the weddings, christenings, soirees and dinner parties. Now, she only took on corporate clients and worked Monday to Friday. At first it had made a big dent in her income, but as word spread, she’d gained more and more professional business – functions, office lunches, board meetings. Her balance sheet was finally as healthy as her work-life balance, so she hadn’t minded when today’s lunch had been cancelled due to a flu epidemic at the client’s offices earlier in the week.

On the night that the cancellation had come in, after a couple of glasses of wine, she’d re-read the letters and the next thing she knew, she was on the internet, on the British Airways website, and using the loyalty points she’d accumulated over the years to book a trip to visit her granny’s homeland. A trip for two. Lulu worked part-time, or rather, whenever she felt like it, doing marketing for Dan’s company, so she’d been delighted to have an excuse to bunk off. They’d hoped to do Friday to Sunday, but the pre-Christmas rush had squashed that plan. The only free seats were on the first flight up this morning, and then an early flight back tomorrow. They had twenty-four hours to learn something, anything, about Annie’s life.

As yet, that was as far as the plan went. Shauna had the old letters with addresses and that was it. She’d tried social media, internet research, birth and death registers, and had ascertained that – as far as she could tell – Annie’s two siblings were still alive. From the addresses on the letters, she’d located the houses on Google Maps, so they were still standing. It was somewhere to start. However, she had no idea if Annie’s relatives were still there, so she was flying by the seat of her pants.

There was a ninety-five per cent chance this quest for living relatives was going to be a complete waste of time, but hey, it gave her something intriguing to do this weekend and took her mind off missing Beth, so how bad could it be?

Besides, it was ages since she’d had time away with Lulu and if all they did was explore a new city, do a bit of Christmas shopping and drink cocktails, well, that would be absolutely fine. It was better than the alternative, which would mostly involve doing anything at all to stop herself from rehashing memories of every Christmas she’d had with Colm.

The queue in the aisle had cleared, so Shauna and Lulu finally disembarked and made their way through Glasgow Airport, stopping when they exited the glass sliding doors in front of the taxi rank. And yes, it was cold, and yes, it was raining, but it didn’t dampen Shauna’s excitement. Glasgow at Christmas. It was as unexpected as it was thrilling.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Lulu asked, as they headed towards the car at the front of a line of white taxis.

‘Let’s go and drop these bags at the hotel. We’re probably too early to check in, but I’m sure they’ll let us store these,’ she gestured to the small wheeled cabin bags they were both pulling. ‘Then I’d like to go see where her sister sent the letters from because I think there’s a good chance that was where Annie grew up. And then maybe go to the address on the other letters too.’

Lulu nodded in agreement. ‘I’m down with all of that as long as we get a cocktail in between every step of the mission.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of doing it any other way,’ Shauna replied, feeling a weird sensation of liberation. Back home, she rarely drank alcohol, as most nights were followed by early morning school or sports runs for Beth. It had been way too long since she’d relaxed and been an independent, commitment free grown-up for the day.

She followed Lulu into the taxi. ‘The Blythswood Square Hotel, please.’ She’d been intending to book a Premier Inn, but at the last moment had decided to treat them to a more luxurious experience – a twin room in one of the city’s most lavish hotels. If it all proved to be a waste of time, at least they’d get a hot stone massage and a night in a comfy bed with Egyptian cotton high thread count sheets. Not that she was entirely sure what Egyptian cotton high thread count sheets actually felt like.

The taxi pulled away and Shauna looked towards the hills in the distance as the strangest feeling descended. She’d never been here and yet it all felt weirdly familiar. She half expected to turn a corner and see Annie standing there, waiting for her.

Shauna just hoped that today was the day that her grandmother was ready, finally, to share her secrets.

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