Jennifer Bohnet - A French Pirouette

Au revoir old life, Bonjour Brittany!

Parisian prima ballerina Suzette knows it’s time to hang up her pointe shoes before her next injury ruins her ankles for good. But dancing is all she’s ever known and she’s terrified of who she’ll be after that final curtain falls.

Meanwhile, lonely Londoner Libby is pouring her life savings into buying an auberge that she and her late husband had loved visiting on holiday. It’s a huge risk that could leave her broke…as well as broken-hearted.

And then there’s Odette who’s retired to the village for a slower pace of life, but who dreads seeing someone else run her beloved auberge .

Three fresh starts…one unforgettable summer!

A French Pirouette

Jennifer Bohnet

Copyright Contents Cover Blurb Title Page Copyright Author Bio Dedication 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 Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Recipes 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 2015

Copyright © Jennifer Bohnet 2015

Jennifer Bohnet 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 © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474028288

Version date: 2018-07-23

Contents

Cover

Blurb Au revoir old life, Bonjour Brittany! Parisian prima ballerina Suzette knows it’s time to hang up her pointe shoes before her next injury ruins her ankles for good. But dancing is all she’s ever known and she’s terrified of who she’ll be after that final curtain falls. Meanwhile, lonely Londoner Libby is pouring her life savings into buying an auberge that she and her late husband had loved visiting on holiday. It’s a huge risk that could leave her broke…as well as broken-hearted. And then there’s Odette who’s retired to the village for a slower pace of life, but who dreads seeing someone else run her beloved auberge . Three fresh starts…one unforgettable summer!

Title Page A French Pirouette Jennifer Bohnet

Copyright

Author Bio JENNIFER BOHNET is a West Country girl now living in the wilds of rural Brittany, France. She’s still not sure how she ended up there! The saying ‘Life is what happens while you’re deciding what to do’ is certainly true in her case. She’s always written alongside having various jobs: playgroup leader, bookseller, landlady, restaurateur, farmer’s wife, secretary/p,a. – the list is endless, but does provide a rich vein of inspiration for her stories. For three years she wrote a newspaper column in The South Hams Group of Newspapers (Devon) where she took a wry look at family life. Since living in France, it is her fiction that has taken off – with hundreds of short stories and several serials published internationally. Allergic to housework and gardening, she rarely does either but she does like cooking and entertaining and wandering around vide greniers (the French equivalent of flea markets) looking for a bargain or two. Her children currently live in fear of her turning into an ageing hippy and moving to Totnes. To find out more about Jennifer visit her website: http://goo.gl/xviqQp or chat to her on Twitter: @jenniewriter

Dedication For my mum who loved dancing and instilled a love of ballet in me. (Evelyn Page 1918 - 2008)

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

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Recipes

Endpages

About the Publisher

JENNIFER BOHNET

is a West Country girl now living in the wilds of rural Brittany, France. She’s still not sure how she ended up there! The saying ‘Life is what happens while you’re deciding what to do’ is certainly true in her case. She’s always written alongside having various jobs: playgroup leader, bookseller, landlady, restaurateur, farmer’s wife, secretary/p,a. – the list is endless, but does provide a rich vein of inspiration for her stories.

For three years she wrote a newspaper column in The South Hams Group of Newspapers (Devon) where she took a wry look at family life. Since living in France, it is her fiction that has taken off – with hundreds of short stories and several serials published internationally.

Allergic to housework and gardening, she rarely does either but she does like cooking and entertaining and wandering around vide greniers (the French equivalent of flea markets) looking for a bargain or two. Her children currently live in fear of her turning into an ageing hippy and moving to Totnes.

To find out more about Jennifer visit her website:

http://goo.gl/xviqQp

or chat to her on Twitter: @jenniewriter

For my mum who loved dancing and instilled a love of ballet in me.

(Evelyn Page 1918 - 2008)

Chapter One

Suzette

Suzette Shelby, the world-famous French ballerina, was soaking her feet in the bathroom of her Paris apartment. Something she did routinely even when she was ‘resting’. Ruefully she lifted her feet out of the water and studied them.

Misshapen old lady’s feet with bunions and callouses stuck on the end of her thirty-eight-year-old legs. Legs that were still shapely with the taut muscled calves and thighs of a dancer. Picking up the soft-as-down large white towel she’d hung over the heated rail, she carefully wrapped her feet in it and gently began to pat them dry. The warmth cocooned her feet. Bliss.

The ballet company’s official chiropodist was always stressing about her feet these days but aside from emergencies she refused to let anybody touch them. Removal of the callouses would only give her blisters. The bunions she’d deal with later when she retired.