Sarah Morgan - Holiday In The Hamptons

Praise for Sarah Morgan

‘The perfect book to curl up with’

– Heat

‘Lovers of romance will relish this tale of friendship, fun and flirting set in beautiful New York.’

– My Weekly

‘Morgan excels in balancing the sweet and sexy to create the perfect blend.’

– Booklist

‘A gorgeously sparkly romance about letting go and learning to love again.’

– Julia Williams, bestselling author of Coming Home for Christmas

‘Full of romance and sparkle’

– Lovereading

‘Morgan is a magician with words’

– RT Book Reviews

‘Definitely looking forward to more from Sarah Morgan’

– Smexy Books

‘Morgan’s novel delivers the classic sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic experience.’

– Publisher’s Weekly

‘Perfect chick-lit’

– BEST Magazine

‘Her dynamic prose like narrative is eloquent, the laugh-out-loud humor lightens the load and both her big-city and small-town settings are perfect’

– RT Book Reviews

‘Another winner from Sarah’

– Annie Cooper’s Book Corner

‘I am fairly certain there will never be a Sarah Morgan book that I won’t love. This was no exception. My very favourite book of hers to date!’

– Erin’s Book Choice

‘A fun loving story with the sprinkling of magic I love in Sarah Morgan’s books.’

– Sarah Mackins

‘Simply gold! A spectacular storyline.’

– A Page of Fictional Love

‘Fresh, romantic, complexity and heart! Sleepless in Manhattan is everything you want in romance!’

– Chicks that Read

‘Sleepless in Manhattan is Sarah Morgan at her best.’

– Rachel’s Random Reads

SARAH MORGANwrites warm contemporary women’s fiction with her trademark humour which has gained her fans across the globe. Sarah lives near London with her husband and children, and when she isn’t reading or writing she loves being outdoors, preferably on holiday so she can forget the house needs tidying. You can visit Sarah online at www.sarahmorgan.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorganand on Twitter @SarahMorgan_

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

Copyright © Sarah Morgan 2017

Sarah Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9781474057592

Version: 2018-10-26

Dear Reader,

I love writing about friendship, especially friendship between sisters. My heroine in Holiday in the Hamptons , Fliss, is a twin, but she couldn’t be more different from her sister Harriet. What could be more interesting than two people who are identical on the outside and yet totally different on the inside? Fliss is a fighter and protective of her sister, but deep down she has her own vulnerabilities. When her ex-husband appears on the scene, she’s forced to confront issues she’d thought she’d left behind. But Fliss isn’t the same person she was at eighteen (are any of us?!) and she is about to learn just how much time, and life, alter things.

This book explores how relationships change, not just romantic relationships, but the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter, sister and sister (and woman and dog!), all against the backdrop of ocean and sand dunes.

My first glimpse of the Hamptons was from a plane and I was captivated by the long stretches of sandy beaches, dunes and the yachts studding the sparkling ocean. It’s a favourite place for New Yorkers looking to escape the madness of the city and it seemed like the perfect place to set a summer book.

Wherever you are this summer, I hope this book gives you the perfect escape.

Love Sarah

xxxx

To Flo, with love and thanks for all the insight into life as a twin. You’re the best.

“The human heart has hidden treasures,

In secret kept, in silence sealed;

The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,

Whose charms were broken if revealed.”

—Charlotte Brontë

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dear Reader

Dedication

Epigraph

PROLOGUE

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

THANK YOU

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

AS EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAYS WENT, it had to be the worst ever.

Fliss ran through the overgrown garden that wrapped itself around three sides of the beach house. She didn’t feel the sharp sting of nettles or the whip of the long grass against her bare calves because she was already feeling too many other things. Bigger things.

The old rusty gate scraped her hip as she pushed her way through it. Misery fueled every stride as she took the grassy path that ran through the dunes to the beach. No one could catch her now. She’d find a place away from everyone. Away from him . And she wasn’t returning home until he’d left. The birthday cake would stay uneaten, the candles unlit, the plates untouched. There would be no singing, no salutations, no celebration. What was there to celebrate?

Fury licked around the edges of her misery, and underneath anger and misery was hurt. A hurt she worked hard never to show. Never let a bully see you’re afraid. Never let yourself be vulnerable. Wasn’t that what her brother had taught her? And her father, she’d worked out long before, was a bully.

If she’d had to find one word to describe him it would be angry . And she’d never understood it. She got mad from time to time, so did her brother, but there was always a cause. With her father, there was no cause for the anger. It was as if he rose in the morning and bathed in it.

Words pounded in her head, matching the rhythm of her strides. Hate him, hate him, hate him…