Sophie Pembroke - The Last Days of Summer - The best feel-good summer read for 2017

SOPHIE PEMBROKEwrites very British romance for Mills & Boon / Harlequin Romance, Avon and HQ. She has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Mills & Boon as part of her English Literature degree at Lancaster University, so getting to write romantic fiction for a living really is a dream come true!

Born in Abu Dhabi, Sophie grew up in Wales and now lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband, her incredibly imaginative eight-year-old daughter, and her adventurous, adorable toddler son.

In Sophie’s world, happy is for ever after, everything stops for tea, and there’s always time for one more page…

Website: www.SophiePembroke.com

Copyright Copyright Dedication 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 Epilogue Acknowledgements Endpages About the Publisher

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

Copyright © Sophie Pembroke 2016

Sophie Pembroke 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, downloaded, 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.

E-book Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008193140

Version date: 2018-06-08

In memory of my own grandparents, Elfed and Olwen Whitley.

For everything you gave me that helped make me who I am today.

I miss you, every second.

Contents

Cover

About the Author SOPHIE PEMBROKE writes very British romance for Mills & Boon / Harlequin Romance, Avon and HQ. She has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Mills & Boon as part of her English Literature degree at Lancaster University, so getting to write romantic fiction for a living really is a dream come true! Born in Abu Dhabi, Sophie grew up in Wales and now lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband, her incredibly imaginative eight-year-old daughter, and her adventurous, adorable toddler son. In Sophie’s world, happy is for ever after, everything stops for tea, and there’s always time for one more page… Website: www.SophiePembroke.com

Title Page

Copyright Copyright Copyright Dedication 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 Epilogue Acknowledgements Endpages About the Publisher HQ An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016 Copyright © Sophie Pembroke 2016 Sophie Pembroke 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, downloaded, 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. E-book Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008193140 Version date: 2018-06-08

Dedication In memory of my own grandparents, Elfed and Olwen Whitley. For everything you gave me that helped make me who I am today. I miss you, every second.

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

“Home isn’t a place, Grace. It’s a feeling. An overwhelming emotion that, once you’ve felt it, you can’t live without.”

“A bit like love, then?” Grace asked.

I nodded. “Sometimes, I think they might be one and the same thing.”

Going Home , by Nathaniel Drury (1980)

I like to think that there’s a book for any feeling, any emotion, any problem. In my world, the cure for what ails you is always a new story, or, sometimes even better, an old one. Some might say it’s a distraction, a diversion from whatever is wrong with your reality. But for me, I often find the answers I’m seeking within the pages of a book – or at least by the time I’ve followed a story from beginning to end, I have a new perspective on my own problems.

I think I read more books in the two years after I left Rosewood than ever before in my life. Or since.

Sometimes I’d read romances, to remind myself that love could end happily. Sometimes I read fantasy novels, for the joy of a high quest and magical solutions. Sometimes I read literary fiction, to experience the world through another’s kaleidoscope. Sometimes I read children’s books, to escape to a simpler time.

And whenever I felt homesick, I read my grandfather’s books, and imagined I could hear him speaking the words to me.

I was homesick that Saturday morning in May, when the first phone call came.

Dressed in my pyjamas and dressing gown, I’d decided to laze around my tiny flat in Perth, Scotland, drinking too-strong black coffee and nibbling on endless pieces of toast, until I felt better. But instead, I found myself moving around the flat restlessly, a copy of Going Home in my hand, absorbing a page or two at a time before my own memories overtook me.

Nathaniel always claimed that the house in the story wasn’t Rosewood, the same way that Biding Time wasn’t about him and my grandmother, Isabelle. But as with all his books, every time I reread them, I found another hint, another clue, that led me towards the truth. Like a treasure hunt Nathaniel had laid out for me, he hid patches of his own history, his own life, in his fiction, waiting for me to find them.

Like the house. However much he denied it, the description of Honeysuckle House in Going Home matched Rosewood to the letter. Not just the honey-coloured brick, symmetrical Georgian design, or the twelve chimneys, or even the white-marble steps leading up to the front door. There was something about the feel of the place – the way he described the sun on the terrace when the gin and tonics were being poured, or the coolness of the middle room when the rain came down outside – that made it feel like home to me.