A break from me, he meant, since he hated hot countries and had never been to Antigua with me. I felt hurt. We were both private people, but we’d lived and worked together in perfect harmony. In fact, my annual December visits to Mum and my stepfather had been the longest periods we’d ever spent apart.

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t already asked Molly to check on me every five minutes while you’re gone, because I won’t believe you,’ he added, with just enough of the ghost of his old, familiar smile to reassure me.

And of course I had done just that, though it still seemed wrong that I should leave him.

‘Julian, why don’t I cancel the flights and have a break nearer home?’ I said impulsively. ‘Or we could both have a little holiday in a hotel somewhere lovely, like Cornwall or—’

The smile vanished and I caught a glimpse of the alien, slightly dangerous fire of anger that the stroke had somehow lit inside his mind.

‘No, and we’re not discussing it any more,’ he snapped, and I turned away.

The only consolation was that this time I’d only be absent for a mere nine days, not the usual fortnight. What could possibly go wrong in so short a time? Especially with Molly, Grant and old Ivan watching over him for me.

The Little Teashop of Lost and Found

Trisha Ashley

Alice Rose is a foundling, discovered on the Yorkshire moors above Haworth as a baby. Adopted but then later rejected again by a horrid stepmother, Alice struggles to find a place where she belongs. Only baking – the scent of cinnamon and citrus and the feel of butter and flour between her fingers – brings a comforting sense of home.

So it seems natural that when she finally decides to return to Haworth, Alice turns to baking again, taking over a run-down little teashop and working to set up an afternoon tea emporium.

Luckily she soon makes friends – including a Grecian god-like neighbour – who help her both set up home and try to solve the mystery of who she is. There are one or two last twists in the dark fairy tale of Alice’s life to come … but can she find her happily ever after?

A Leap of Faith

Trisha Ashley

Sappho Jones stopped counting birthdays when she reached thirty but, even with her hazy grip on mathematics, she realizes that she’s on the slippery slope to the big four-oh! With the thought suddenly lodged in her mind that she’s a mere cat’s whisker away from becoming a single eccentric female living in a country cottage in Wales, she has the urge to do something dramatic before it’s too late.