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'Making Wishes at Bay View'
Previously released as two separate titles: 'Raving About Rhys' and 'Callie's Christmas Wish'.
It's only £1.99 to download and is available globally, on paperback* and audio. Woo hoo!
* Only available in print on demand format atm so a little more costly
hyperurl.co/jgsrtq
Never give up on a wish for a happy ever after...
Callie Derbyshire has it all: her dream job as a carer at Bay View, finally she has found the love of her life. Everything is perfect.
Well, almost.
Ex-partners are insistent on stirring up trouble, and Callie’s favourite resident, Ruby, hasn’t been her usual self.
But after discovering the truth about Ruby’s lost love, Callie is determined to give Ruby’s romantic story the happy ending it deserves. After all, it’s never too late to let love in again. Or is it?
EXTRACT
Chapter 1
I blame it on my dad. If he hadn’t died when I was only six, I don’t think I’d have been so obsessed with older men. Don’t get me wrong, Nick did a brilliant job at being the man in my life. I don’t know what Mum and I would have done without him. But ceasing to be the brother and becoming the dad instead is a big ask for anyone, especially when they’re only ten themselves when it happens.
Let me be really clear for a moment. I wasn’t looking for an older man to be a replacement father or anything weird like that. It’s just that I was drawn to them more than to anyone close to my age. There was a confidence about them. Maturity. Experience. They were attentive. They knew what they wanted. In some cases they knew what was best for me too and I kind of liked not having to make decisions for myself. Sometimes. So, on reflection, perhaps they were filling some sort of dad-shaped void in my life.
The thing is, my relationships always seemed to go wrong. Very wrong. I swore every time that I wasn’t going to get involved with an older man again. Then the next one would come along and I’d be right back to square one, thinking that this time would be different.
What’s that phrase? You have to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince? Believe me, I’ve kissed more than my fair share of frogs. And toads. And snakes. But I’d finally got there. I’d found my prince and he answered to the name of Tony Sinclair. Forty-five. Divorced. No kids. Still had his own hair. Still had the body and sex drive of a man in his twenties. Perfect. Or it would have been if he wasn’t constantly on the road with his job and I didn’t work shifts. Time together was rare and precious.
‘Are you still courting that sugar daddy of yours?’ Ruby asked as she watched me lay out the tables for afternoon bingo.
I smiled at my favourite resident. I knew I shouldn’t have favourites, but Ruby had led such a fascinating life and I loved hearing all about it. She’d run away to join the circus at age fourteen, then toured the world as an exotic dancer in her late teens and early twenties. Seriously. I’d seen the photographic evidence. She’d been a looker back then and still was. She’d gathered a few wrinkles in her eighty-four years, but her grey eyes still sparkled with mischief, her thick white hair was always elegantly pinned up, and she dressed immaculately in calf-length satin and lace dresses, crocheted floaty cardigans, and pearls. She reminded me of a flapper from the twenties.
‘Tony? Yes, Ruby, we’re still courting.’
‘No more accusations of being clingy?’
I shook my head. ‘All dealt with and forgotten a couple of months ago.’ We’d split up in April after I’d gone overboard on texting and phoning him around my twenty-fifth birthday. He was working away on my actual birthday, which I completely accepted, and this had been my way of feeling close to him. He wasn’t impressed, his boss wasn’t impressed, and I wasn’t impressed at being called ‘childish and clingy’. So I childishly dumped him. I regretted it immediately and pleaded for another chance. He made me stew a bit before forgiving me but everything was back on track a fortnight later. Lesson learned.
Ruby took a seat at her regular table overlooking the gardens and straightened her lilac frock. ‘How long is it now, Callie?’
I started distributing the bingo cards. ‘Coming up eleven months. Bit of a record for me. It usually goes tits-up within three.’ I gasped and put my hand over my mouth. ‘Please don’t tell anyone I said rude words. Especially Denise.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica was born in Teesside but now lives on the stunning North Yorkshire Coast which inspired the creation of the fictional seaside town of Whitsborough Bay where she sets all her books.
She lives with her husband, daughter, cat, Sprocker Spaniel and is a self-confessed stationery addict. She loves chocolate, although it doesn't love her, 80s music, collectible teddy bears and lighthouses.
Her dream is to be able to write full-time one day but, until then, she has a day job as an HR Tutor and tries to balance her time - usually unsuccessfully - between that and writing.
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