The Secret of Orchard Cottage: The feel-good number one bestseller

The Secret of Orchard Cottage: The feel-good number one bestseller
Alex Brown

Warm and wise bestselling fiction from the hugely popular Alex Brown, the author of The Great Christmas Knit Off and The Great Village Show.April Wilson is wondering what to do next – her life has been turned upside down after the loss of her husband so she’s hoping to piece herself together again with a visit to her elderly great aunt, Edith. Arriving in the rural idyll of Tindledale, she’s dismayed to find Edith’s cottage and the orchards surrounding it in a sorry state of disrepair. Edith seems to have lost interest completely, instead she’s become desperate to find out what happened to her sister, Winnie, who disappeared during WWII.April gets to work immediately, discovering that the orchard still delivers a bumper crop each year, and with the help of some of the villagers – including Matt, the enigmatic Farrier – begins to unravel the mystery of the missing Winnie. Slowly,April can feel things coming to life again – but can Orchard Cottage work its magic on her too?

Copyright (#u4bc9d230-2740-5a5b-9247-1d523d6743bc)

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2016

Copyright © Alexandra Brown 2016

Cover design by Alexandra Allden © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover images © Ivary / Getty Images (orchard scene); Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com) (all other images).

Alexandra Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007597420

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780007597444

Version 2017-10-20

Dedication (#u4bc9d230-2740-5a5b-9247-1d523d6743bc)

For all the ordinary women everywhere,

doing extraordinary things

‘Treasure this book always, for it will stand the test of time’

– Winnie Lovell, 1941

Table of Contents

Cover (#u1796a1da-2665-5179-9ac6-b6c79110bc1d)

Title Page (#u064e953f-50d2-5540-86e7-4a58ef0a0f9d)

Copyright (#u0419ec32-671e-5f08-8465-d8359fdb41f9)

Dedication (#u2c2453d0-47a8-57e3-b190-c83abac69f78)

Epigraph (#u3b3c3196-9eb0-575c-aaf5-07288a51e368)

Prologue (#ua6d1ef14-4c2d-5039-ae93-3010bb36bc25)

Chapter 1 (#udd09e0d4-758b-5405-af01-4e371110e2a1)

Chapter 2 (#u9871934f-91a9-524d-a50a-c24647bb6e76)

Chapter 3 (#u479bd070-a79d-5b0e-bec1-d250d4c620b7)

Chapter 4 (#ude9ef9b9-0dc1-5ea6-9517-9d5ec7761639)

Chapter 5 (#ubadbf3f4-3742-5f83-b0bf-8abe692d26c6)

Chapter 6 (#u8fd13730-0ac7-50d3-8187-39b6460fdb83)

Chapter 7 (#u10622a99-39fb-5b27-b8b9-60d1ec3efeb3)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)