Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Josie Hartwell is thrilled about her new contract job working with bookstore owner Mari Everett to set up a reading retreat on Elderflower Island. However, she’s shocked to realize that she will not only be working closely with Malcolm Sullivan on the project, but that she’ll also be staying in his houseboat on the Thames. For more than a decade, she’s worked to forget about Malcolm, who had been an exchange student at her high school in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Like everyone else, she’d had a secret crush on him. Unlike everyone else, however, it was only her heart that he’d crushed.
Now that they’re unexpectedly reunited, as they spend more and more time together, the sizzling heat between them becomes hotter than anything either of them have felt with anyone else. But do they have any chance of a lasting love? Can Josie risk her heart on the man who smashed it into a million pieces? Can she trust him to get it right this time? Or should she walk out of his life, the same way he once walked out of hers?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
Josie Hartwell could hardly believe she was in England. It had been an eleven-hour trip from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to Heathrow Airport in London. She should be tired after spending hours beside a couple who chattered the entire way, and if there was a crying-baby section, she was in it. However, she was so excited to be in the UK that she didn’t feel tired at all.
Instead, she was energized. She couldn’t wait to run her first reading retreat at Elderflower Island Books on Elderflower Island. Even the name sounded magical. When she had started her business of creating reading retreats, she had never dreamed that one day it would take her all the way across the Atlantic. She felt so lucky, as though everything she’d been through in her life to get to this point was finally all worth it.
She’d developed an expertise not only in running retreats but in designing spaces in which to hold them. As she and Mari Everett, the owner of Elderflower Island Books, had chatted on email and then, when they got more comfortable, on Zoom, she’d discovered Mari to be an energetic woman with big plans. She wanted to create a retreat space, and she wanted Josie to design it, then run the first reading retreat. “And more if it works out, which obviously I hope it will,” Mari had said.
Josie was excited to see the project through from design to holding the first retreat, so she’d enthusiastically agreed. Mari had booked a flex ticket in case the two weeks ran over, and Josie was careful not to take any bookings too close to the end of her time in the UK. She knew perfectly well that sometimes projects took longer than expected.
For the next two weeks, she was going to be staying on a houseboat on Elderflower Island, in a borough just outside of London. Mari had offered to book a hotel room if she preferred, but the houseboat belonged to her partner Owen’s brother, and since Mari was working so hard to launch her bookstore and reading retreats, Josie imagined money was tight. A loaned houseboat would be a lot cheaper than a hotel and, to Josie’s mind, so much nicer, so she happily chose the boat. She’d read a little bit online about the area, but she hadn’t wanted to do too much research before embarking on the trip. She wanted to experience it all fresh—to see and feel and be amazed by everything in person for the first time.
One thing she noticed as soon as she got to Arrivals at Heathrow: Everyone looked so cosmopolitan in their trench coats and fashionable boots, with expensive bags swinging from their shoulders. They all walked with such purpose, as though they had important meetings to go to. Or, like the woman who ran into the arms of a man holding flowers, they were meeting a lover whom they hadn’t seen for a while. And there was the family waiting for their father to walk out of the baggage claim area, holding a sign that said, Daddy, we are so happy you’re home! Already, England felt welcoming, and Josie hadn’t even left the airport yet.
Unlike the lovers reuniting beside her, Josie didn’t have anybody waiting for her back in Coeur d’Alene. Her mother had moved from the rainy Pacific Northwest to the Las Vegas area for year-round sun, and Josie’s friends were so busy with their kids and husbands that Josie no longer felt like she fit in anywhere. Or with anyone.
Once upon a time, she’d thought she was headed toward wearing a wedding dress and walking down the aisle to recite vows of forever. Maybe she’d even start a family in the not-too-distant future. She’d thought she’d found Prince Charming, her one true love, the man she was supposed to be with. Everything had been so perfect.
Until the day she’d had the biggest shock of her life… when she’d learned that her boyfriend already had a wife and baby.
Until the day she’d been forced to face the fact that she was nothing more than a mistress who had been lied to in every possible way.
She’d never forget the day she opened the door and found a young, attractive, furious-looking woman holding a baby and accusing her of being a homewrecker.
No, Josie thought with a shake of her head. That was her past. And this—coming to London to do her dream job—was her future. She was living a different life now. A better life. One where she chose books—both fiction and nonfiction—to help her clients.
Whatever state their personal, physical, or mental affairs might be in, the right book could help. She still could hardly believe that she was making her living by helping others find the books that were right for them, in the same way stories had always helped her through tough times… and now she’d be working in London too!