'Delightful and witty with a heroine you'll be rooting for . . . joyful escapism' - Milly Johnson
'Spirited, adventurous and full of heart!' - Heidi Swain
When her good-for-nothing boyfriend cheats on her and steals her life savings, she finally dumps him and rents out her spare room as an Airbnb. Gossip flies around the town as Kara welcomes a series of foreign guests to her flat overlooking the estuary.
Then an anonymous postcard arrives, along with a plane ticket to New York. And there begins the first of three trips of a lifetime, during which she will learn important lessons about herself, her life and what she wants from it - and perhaps find love along the way.
More praise for Nicola May!
'This book will twang your funny bone & your heartstrings' - Milly Johnson
'A fun and flighty read' - Sun
'A funny and fast-paced romp - thoroughly enjoyable!' - WOMAN Magazine
'One of those books that I can't stop thinking about way after I've read it! - Kim The Bookworm
'This book is so addictive that you will literally lose 3 hours of your life, and you won't care!' - Cara's Book Boudoir
Readers love Nicola May, too!
'A FABULOUS must-read' - 5 STARS
'An excellent book of friendship - with a little wickedness!' - 5 STARS
'Good for the soul' - 5 STARS
'I loved it and devoured it in a matter of days' - 5 STARS
'A wonderful, feel-good novel with some grit thrown in' - 5 STARS
'Marvellous, beautiful and heart-warming' - 5 STARS
'Sea, sand and sex - a soppy delight' - 5 STARS
'A truly lovely book' - 5 STARS
'Fun and whimsy, plus a dog!' - 5 STARS
'Nicola May is a brilliant, relevant writer for today, exposing today's issues with tenderness, and always demonstrating a warm, human, heartfelt response' - 5 STARS
Excerpt:
** Chapter 1 **
‘I bet even the real Sid Vicious didn’t shit in his bathwater.’ Kara Moon stared down at the noxious poo in the terrapin’s tank.
‘Ooh, I bet he did,’ her boyfriend Jago murmured whilst flattening down his dark-brown Beatles-style haircut and patting his khaki jacket pockets in turn. ‘Seen my keys, Moo Moo?’
Kara cringed inwardly at her once much-adored nick- name. Then, retrieving the keys from the orderly rack in the kitchen, she came back through the open archway into their compact living space.
A lone beam of golden sunlight made its jittery mark across the wooden floor as it seeped through the open crack of the balcony door. The sounds of mewing seagulls and creaking yacht masts in the estuary harbour rose up from below, comforting and familiar, yet they did not ease the gnawing feeling in Kara Moon’s stomach. Hoping for a different answer to the one she was expecting, she asked casually, ‘Where are you going this early, anyway?’
As Jago reached for his battered Beatles key ring, Kara caught a whiff of the Gucci aftershave she had given him for Christmas. He looked at her with a perplexed expression. ‘It’s Jobcentre day. You know I always go over to Crowsbridge on a Friday.’
‘How could I possibly forget?’ Kara said sarcastically. ‘Oh yes, maybe because it’s been eighteen months and you still haven’t come back with a job.’
‘Don’t start.’
‘It’s just, James Bond needs his flea stuff and I’m not sure if there’s enough money in the blue pot and—’
Ignoring her pitiful plea, Jago went to the open hallway, jumped down two stairs at a time, then looked back to say in a patronising tone, ‘My little Ginger Princess. You look quite pretty when you forget to tie your hair up in that stupid ponytail.’
Fighting back tears, Kara put her hand to the back of her long, messy auburn waves as her errant beau of eight years stalled again to say nastily, ‘And why aren’t you at work? Or did you stupidly forget about that too?’
Kara sighed deeply and held her palm up to him. ‘Just go, Jago. You mustn’t be late now, must you.’
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. The famous Lennon- McCartney lyrics that Kara had chosen for his special key ring followed after Jago as he hurried down the stairs, jumped down the last three and went out, slamming the door.
To try and regain a modicum of inner peace, Kara stood still for a minute and stared out of the window at nothing in particular. Here she was, at thirty-three years old, living with a jobless, feckless, twenty-nine-year-old youth, with no mention or hope of plans for the future. And despite her working her butt off to support the two of them, she seemed to barely make ends meet, let alone save any money. The more cash she put aside in the blue ceramic savings pot for unseen eventualities and ‘nice things’ like holidays or week- ends away, the more excuses Jago Ellis found to dip into it. In fact, tragically, the only holiday they had ever been on together was a long weekend to Liverpool where she was dragged around every street and tourist attraction to satisfy his insatiable hunger for anything and everything relating to his precious obsession: the Beatles.
Deftly avoiding a bite from Sid Vicious, Kara swore loudly and continued to hold back the tears she had been gripping on to. Then, gagging as she pulled her pink rubber washing-up gloves up as far as they would go, she scooped up the offending smelly mess in the tiny net bought for the purpose.
It was five years ago when Jago had arrived home drunk, carrying a huge tank up the steep stairs, slopping water as he went. And five years ago when the job of looking after this poor little reptile, first seen by Kara hanging on to a rock for dear life, had become her responsibility. She lifted her head in thought. Had they been getting on then? She couldn’t remember.
Their living room with a view offered an optical illusion of space but despite the long bay window seat and door out on to the balcony, there was barely room for their table/ desk with a couple of dining chairs and a sagging, two-seater sofa. Jago had cack-handedly fixed a TV far too big for the room to the wall above the fireplace. And the glass shelf that was eventually put up for the tank to sit on was placed at such an angle that when poor Sid wanted to get out of the water and bask under his heat lamp, it took him several attempts to scrabble his way up the slope to his rock. A canvas of the iconic Abbey Road Beatles cover hung on the wall above him; it was as if the Fab Four were taunting the little terrapin with their ability to walk in a straight line.
Despite the lack of space in the two-bedroomed flat, when Kara had caught sight of the Painted Turtle’s cute little prehistoric face, she didn’t have the heart to say he had to go back to the pet shop from whence he came. And by the time she had got around to googling ‘How long do terrapins live’ and realised it could be up to thirty years, it was too late: Sid Vicious, the most aggressive reptile in Cornwall, along with James Bond, the skinny twelve-year-old black- and-white rescue moggy, with his furry white tuxedo and 007 air of nonchalance, were now very much part of their dysfunctional little Ferry Lane family.
Grimacing, she emptied the terrapin’s mess into one of the big terracotta flowerpots on the first-floor balcony. Then, taking in the fresh sea air, she looked down to see the welcome sight of her father opening the metal gates of the ferry float and Jago running across the road towards it at full pelt so as not to miss its prompt departure.
As if sensing his daughter’s sad eyes on him, Joe Moon looked up, smiled, waved, then turned his attention to beckoning the queuing cars on to the beloved car and passenger ferry service – the thriving business that had been part of the Moon family’s life for as long as Kara could remember.
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