Christmas Magic

Christmas Magic
Cathy Kelly

A festive collection of short stories by No. 1 bestseller, Cathy Kelly, the natural heir to Maeve Binchy.Lose yourself in this warm and wonderful collection of short stories from bestselling Irish storyteller Cathy Kelly.From weddings and summer holidays to Christmas with uninvited family or long-lost friends returning, this anthology captures the hopes, tears, laughter and loves of all kinds of women and their families and friends with Cathy’ s inimitable warmth.The holiday season comes but once a year, so curl up by a roaring fire and let the magic reel you in…

CATHY KELLY

Christmas Magic

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2012

Cathy Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for 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

Source ISBN: 9780007466931

Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007444434

Version: 2017-11-21

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved under International 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, downloaded, 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 e-books.

For Dylan, Murray, Laura,Naomi, Emer and Robert, with all my love

Contents

Title Page (#u78f96bdf-127b-50d1-a8af-ae9851890cc1)

Copyright (#u16940219-0b55-577c-aab8-99c6c5009069)

Dedication (#ud299cbbe-a379-5780-8e8b-f35fed0fb369)

Christmas Magic (#u3158b604-4e32-5b58-b109-83ba2694eed2)

Anniversary Waltz (#uf8775380-4020-5958-9bb6-2888dd279527)

Madame Lucia (#u7f8c8d6c-89f2-51c4-9af2-098db4936dc3)

Off Your Trolley (#ua6675fd0-4a69-5487-9549-f78929cb1717)

May You Live in Interesting Times (#litres_trial_promo)

A Villa by the Sea (#litres_trial_promo)

The Gap Year (#litres_trial_promo)

Cassandra (#litres_trial_promo)

Letter from Chicago (#litres_trial_promo)

Bride and Doom (#litres_trial_promo)

You’ve Got Mail (#litres_trial_promo)

Christmas Post (#litres_trial_promo)

The Trouble with Mother (#litres_trial_promo)

The Paradise Road Book Club (#litres_trial_promo)

The Angel Gabrielle (#litres_trial_promo)

Lizzie’s Fling (#litres_trial_promo)

Thelma, Louise and the Lurve Gods (#litres_trial_promo)

The Office Christmas Party (#litres_trial_promo)

A Family Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)

Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)

Stories previously published (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Christmas Magic

Primrose Cottage sat at the very end of Johnson’s Lane, an enchantingly pretty little house with wisteria snaking into the low roof and rose bushes clustering up to peer in the windows.

It was owned by the Malone sisters, Dolores and Genevieve, and although they didn’t get a lot of post, the sisters were on first-name terms with the postman, Bernard, who often stopped at Primrose Cottage for a quick cup of tea of a morning.

When he had anything for them, Bernard’s routine was to arrive at about nine thirty, by which time Genevieve would have completed the crossword and Dolores taken the dogs for their first little stroll of the day, up past that nice young couple’s cottage and back. The kettle would be boiling away happily on the range and Dolores’ scones would be warming in the small oven, ready for dollops of Genevieve’s crab-apple jelly.