Sarah Morgan - The Christmas Sisters - The Sunday Times top ten feel-good and romantic bestseller!

SARAH MORGANlives near London with her husband and two sons. An international bestseller, her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and she has sold over sixteen million copies.

For more about Sarah visit her website www.sarahmorgan.com, and sign up to her newsletter. She loves to connect with readers on Facebook ( AuthorSarahMorgan), Twitter ( @SarahMorgan_) and Instagram ( sarahmorganwrites).

Also by Sarah Morgan

Snow Crystal series

Sleigh Bells in the Snow

Suddenly Last Summer

Maybe This Christmas

Puffin Island series

First Time in Forever

Some Kind of Wonderful

Christmas Ever After

From Manhattan with Love series

Sleepless in Manhattan

Sunset in Central Park

Miracle on 5th Avenue

New York, Actually

Holiday in the Hamptons

Moonlight Over Manhattan

How To Keep A Secret

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Sarah Morgan 2018

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, 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.

Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9781474070706

Version: 2018-09-28

Hello!

Christmas is my favourite time of year but I’m the first to admit that reality doesn’t always meet expectation! I sometimes feel I have more turkey disaster stories than the average person, but I could be wrong (and if we meet in person and you want to compare festive nightmares, I’m sure we’ll bond for life).

Of course all of us want Christmas to be as perfect as possible and that’s the case for the family in this book. The McBrides, including sisters Hannah, Beth and Posy only get together at Christmas which increases the pressure on everyone to make it the best it can be. Add to that the fact that everyone brings their own personal baggage along with their Christmas gifts, and it’s inevitable that things will start to go wrong.

I had fun exploring the complex family dynamics in this story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and that your own celebrations, whatever form they take, go smoothly and meet all your expectations!

Love Sarah

xx

To the wonderful Lisa Milton, with love and thanks.

Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

Charlotte Brontë

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Also by Sarah Morgan

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

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

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Suzanne

THERE ARE GOOD anniversaries, and bad anniversaries. This was a bad one and Suzanne chose to mark the moment with a nightmare.

As usual, she was buried, her body immobile and trapped under a weight as heavy as concrete. There was snow in her mouth, in her nose, in her ears. The force and pressure of it crushed her. How deep was she? Which way was up? Would anyone be looking for her?

She tried to scream, but there was nothing, nothing…

“Suzanne…”

Someone was calling her name. She couldn’t respond. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her chest was being squeezed.

“Suzanne!”

She heard the voice through darkness and panic.

“You’re dreaming.”

She felt something touch her shoulder, and the movement catapulted her out of her frozen tomb and back to reality. She sat up, her hand to her throat, gulping in air.

“It’s all right,” the voice said. “Everything is all right.”

“I had…a dream. The dream.” And it was so real she expected to find herself surrounded by ice crystals, not crumpled bedding.

“I know.” The voice belonged to Stewart, and his hand was on her back, rubbing gently. “You were screaming.”

And now she noticed that his face was white and lines of anxiety bracketed his mouth.

They had a routine for this but hadn’t had to use it in a while.

“It was so vivid. I was there .”

Stewart flicked on the light. A soft glow spread across the bedroom, illuminating dark corners and pushing aside the last wisps of the nightmare. “You’re safe. Look around you.”

Suzanne looked, her imagination still trapped under the weight of snow.

But there was no snow. No avalanche. Just her warm, cozy bedroom in Glensay Lodge, where the remains of a fire danced in the hearth and the darkness of the endless winter night shone black through a gap in the curtains. She’d made the curtains herself from a sumptuous tartan fabric she’d found on her first visit to Scotland. Stewart’s mother had claimed it was their clan tartan, but all Suzanne cared about was that those curtains kept the cold out on chilly nights and made the room cozy. She’d also made the quilt that was draped across the bottom of the bed.

On the table near the window was a bottle of single malt whiskey from the local distillery, and next to it sat Stewart’s empty glass.

There was her favorite chair, the cushions plumped and soft. Her book, a novel that hadn’t really caught her attention, lay open next to her knitting. A new order of wool had arrived the day before and she’d been thrilled by the colors. Deep purples and blues lay against softer hues of heather and rich cream, ready to brighten the palette of white and gray that lay beyond her windows. The wool reminded her of the wild Scottish heather that grew in the glen in early and late summer. Thinking of it cheered her. When the weather warmed, she liked to walk early in the morning and see the heather as the sun burned through the mist.

And there was Stewart. Stewart, with his kind eyes and infinite patience. Stewart, who had been by her side for more than three decades.

She was in the Scottish Highlands, tens of thousands of miles from the icy flanks of Mount Rainier. Still, the dream hung over her like a chilling fog, infecting her thoughts.