Also by Nancy Barone
No Room at the Little Cornish Inn
NEW HOPE FOR THE LITTLE CORNISH FARMHOUSE
Nancy Barone
Just when she thought she’d written all she knew about love…
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.ariafiction.com
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Nancy Barone, 2020
The moral right of Nancy Barone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781838938031
Cover design © Cherie Chapman
Aria
c/o Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
www.ariafiction.com
Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1: It’s Complicated
Chapter 2: As Good As It Gets
Chapter 3: Something’s Gotta Give
Chapter 4: Crime And Punishment
Chapter 5: It Could Happen To You
Chapter 6: Something To Talk About
Chapter 7: Hollywood Dreams
Chapter 8: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Chapter 9: The Devil’s Advocate
Chapter 10: Alice In Wonderland
Chapter 11: California Dreaming
Chapter 12: Glass Houses
Chapter 13: About A Boy
Chapter 14: The Bucket List
Chapter 15: My Neighbour’s Secret
Chapter 16: A New Life
Chapter 17: The Predator
Chapter 18: The Odd Couple
Chapter 19: Gossip
Chapter 20: The English Patient
Chapter 21: Friends With Benefits
Chapter 22: Irreconcilable Differences
Chapter 23: La La Land
Chapter 24: Stand By Me
Chapter 25: The Wedding Planner
Chapter 26: No Sex Please, We’re British
Chapter 27: Morning Glory
Chapter 28: The Secret Of My Success
Chapter 29: Mystery Man
Chapter 30: Gone With The Wind
Chapter 31: Miss You Already
Chapter 32: Revenge
Chapter 33: The Crying Game
Chapter 34: Nine To Five
Chapter 35: Phoenix
Chapter 36: Triangle
Chapter 37: Dazed And Confused
Chapter 38: Once Upon A Time In America
Chapter 39: My Best Friend’s Wedding
Chapter 40: Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Epilogue: Los Angeles, one year later
Ingredients
Procedure
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Become an Aria Addict
To my beloved husband Nick with love. I couldn’t have done any of this imaginary-world stuff if you hadn’t been there to take care of the real world outside – and to be my creative sounding board as always.
1
It’s Complicated
Nina Conte has written three novels and lives in a rambling farmhouse on the outskirts of a Cornish seaside village with her two children and their dog Minnie.
That was my life on paper. More precisely, in my author bio.
Because in reality, my existence couldn’t be any more different than the idyllic picture my agent had painted.
Indeed, there were three novels, two children and one dog – no lie there. But the “rambling farmhouse”, Cornflower Cottage, had been (and practically still was) a ruin that my erstwhile husband Phil and I had bought three years, ago with the intention of doing it up while we roughed it on site with our children in a caravan for the summer.
That had been the plan three years ago. Chloe, who was ten at the time, and Ben, only five, were absolutely thrilled about our new Cornish adventure. And so was I. But one rainy afternoon, only two weeks into our new life, amidst plumbers and roofers and glazers, Phil walked out on us.
There had been no Goodbye, I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s me, I’ll come back for my stuff, We’ll take turns with the kids, et cetera. Nothing but an I’m not doing this anymore.
So I’d watched, completely numb with stupor, as he marched through the rotting oak front door that had been hanging on a hinge and a prayer for the last three hundred years, and strode straight off the mess that was the building site – and our lives.
In his haste to go, however, he hadn’t forgotten to empty out our joint bank account, leaving me absolutely nothing for the children, not even for a food shop, let alone the hefty renovation bills that were coming in like flyers through a stuffed mailbox.
It was a good thing I had already paid for Ben and Chloe’s first year at Northwood Academy, one of the best schools in Cornwall, and the main reason we’d moved here. But as far as everything else was concerned, we had nothing left for the next three months until my royalties came in.
And, as if Phil had cast a Macumba on us, the second he disappeared over the horizon on his motorbike, our caravan, containing our every worldly possession, including the kids’ brand-new school books, uniforms and PE kits, suddenly caught fire.
I remember half-carrying Ben and Chloe from the caravan to the front yard, which was a mud-rink from weeks of rain. My neighbours and the locals from the village were there in a moment to help put it out, and that was how I met most of them.
But they needn’t have bothered, because the minute they arrived, an almighty hell broke loose from the skies, drenching everyone to the bone while I wrapped Chloe and Ben in my Mac, the only possession we now had left in the world, apart from the roofless ruin we had hoped to call home.
Luckily Jack Marrak, the farmer from Crooked Hill Farm, my nearest neighbour on my left and up the road, put us up in his beautiful farmhouse while he and a few others from the village helped make the building watertight. In the space of a half hour, his entrance hall had been submerged with goods of every kind, from clothes to toys.
And since then, we have been an integral part of the village of Penworth Ford, a community of only seventy-five souls, with my new best friends Emma Perkins living on my right in Hyacinth Cottage and Jack as my pillars. Jack had done as much work as he could with a couple of his friends, such as stripping
