A Year of New Adventures
It’s time for Billie Summers to have an adventure … but it might not be exactly what she expected.
Billie Summers has always been quite content in her little cottage in the Cotswolds, sure half the house hasn’t been renovated, but what’s the point when it’s only her! Working part-time at her uncle’s bookshop and planning 3-4 writer retreats with her best friend allows her to pay the bills. What more could anyone want?
That is until Oliver Forest, the bad boy of the book world, turns up to one of her retreats and points out that Billie hasn’t done anything very adventurous. Couple that with her best friend falling head over heels and beginning to drift away from their Friday night wine and dinner plans, Billie is starting to wonder if it isn’t time she take control of her life.
So she starts a list: get fitted (properly) for a bra, fix up rest of house, find a ‘career’ and well, get a tattoo … Her life might just get the makeover it needs, too bad irritating and far-too-attractive for his own good, Oliver keeps showing up …
Because sometimes you need an adventure!
Extract
It was the third writers’ retreat Helena and I had run and the previous two had gone like clockwork. There was no reason why this one shouldn’t have been just the same.
And then Oliver Forest turned up.
It was a dark, wet day in February and, believe me, his mood made it seem even bleaker.
It didn’t take long for things to go wrong.
It was ten-fifteen and people had been asked to turn up after eleven, so Helena and I were sitting with our feet up in the gorgeous kitchen of our rental house eating cookies out of the first batch I’d made; some of them had broken when I’d burned myself and dropped the baking tray.
Although she is my best friend, Helena is nothing like me. For example, she believes any meal taking longer than seven minutes in a nine-hundred-watt microwave is a waste of time. I love cooking and have been known to sleepwalk into the kitchen to make an omelette.
She has an immaculate and much-loved pale-blue Morris Minor called William, whereas I have a beaten-up old Land Rover, which isn’t called anything except rude names when it refuses to start. Actually, I’m petrified it needs a new cam belt, something that was mentioned in hushed tones last September when it had an MOT. I hope it wasn’t listening. I didn’t dare ask what a cam belt was, but it sounds expensive doesn’t it?
Even though it might be on its last legs, my car had more space than hers for all our provisions. I had removed the Tesco bag full of muddy shoes, a box of books to take to the local telephone kiosk library, and the cracked first-aid kit that now contained only a triangular bandage and a box of corn plasters. Still, if we’d met anyone with a broken arm and bunions on our drive down to the lovely house we’d rented for the retreat, we’d have been ready.
‘So I hope you’re going to tell me you’ve got your money back from Matt?’ Helena asked with an innocent air as I reached for another cookie.
‘Well no, but he promised he would sort it out,’ I said.
This was an ongoing conversation that had started before Christmas when Matt – my now very ex-boyfriend – had gone on our romantic holiday without me.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Billie!’ Helena said. ‘When are you going to toughen up with him? He owes you money! He nicked your towels! Why are you letting him get away with it?’
Claire's Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is the story of Billie Summers who after splitting with her boyfriend, organises a writers retreat with her best friends, and meets Oliver Frost who expects the world to owe him. He is rude and one of the worst people to come on the retreat.
This book was a great easy read, and well written that you will sit down to read a few pages and still be there an hour later. A great summer read with some romance and humour thrown in.
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