The Great Summer Sewing Bee

The Great Summer Sewing Bee
Alex Brown

Can the perfect village save the perfect wedding? INCLUDES EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM A POSTCARD FROM ITALY Cher, the landlady of the Duck & Puddle pub in the picturesque village of Tindledale is getting married to her fiancé, Clive, aka Sonny. When disaster strikes, threatening to ruin Cher’s wedding, her best friend, Sybil comes up with a plan. Can the villagers and the sew solid crew from Hettie’s House of Haberdashery and their Singer sewing machines save the big day to give Cher her perfect, country wedding?

The Great Summer Sewing Bee

ALEX BROWN

Copyright (#u7704805c-0d95-50f3-b854-db1110553477)

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Alexandra Brown 2019

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019.

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com

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: 9780008110444

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008110444

Version 2019-05-16

Dedication (#u7704805c-0d95-50f3-b854-db1110553477)

For QT – I got you babe!

Table of Contents

Cover (#u04eb3b3e-89cc-5711-9f21-d535d4f2f5e4)

Title Page (#u37fbbe09-6136-588d-86ef-50a15765619e)

Copyright (#u3d1d90c7-661c-5f73-90c3-35372ed6e064)

Dedication (#u125e256f-e577-59ea-adfe-8e0e309f5ad3)

Epigraph

Chapter One (#uc937b986-8cc1-5937-a935-59a778c7869f)

Chapter Two (#u84db367f-7808-5ed0-a99e-dcae634c5538)

Chapter Three (#u6f8130f6-838d-5eee-a9ef-7fbe96085f85)

Chapter Four (#u0367f575-b78a-5c50-9396-fad0b3e165e7)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading… (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Alex Brown (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#u7704805c-0d95-50f3-b854-db1110553477)

Cher, the landlady of the Duck & Puddle pub, loved this time of day. Early in the morning, as the sun was rising over the valley of undulating fields surrounding the village of Tindledale; before anyone else was up and preparations for another busy day began, pulling pints and serving the hungry villagers hearty, homemade meals. Today’s special was roast beef, sourced from Pete’s farm two fields over, with all the trimmings, followed by a giant wedge of lemon meringue pie. And so, with a mug of tea and a plate piled high with toast and marmalade, Cher settled on the bench at the back of the pub garden, tilted her face up to bask in the already warm rays and inhaled a huge lungful of fresh country air. Sighing, she smiled and gazed across the fields dotted with springy lambs cavorting without a care in the world. A rainbow of wild flowers as tall as the fence swaying in the warm, gentle breeze. A collection of cabbage white butterflies fluttering all around. Tindledale, the village where she lived now, really was idyllic and a million miles away from the concrete jungle of the East London estate where she had grown up.

‘You OK, love?’ It was Clive, aka Sonny, on account of him being Cher’s boyfriend, wandering across the grass towards her in his chef whites. When they had first arrived in Tindledale to manage the village pub a few years ago, one of the regulars had said it for a laugh, as in, ‘so if our new landlady is called Cher and you’re her fella, then you must be Sonny’ before belting out a line from the iconic duo’s song, “I Got You Babe”. And it had been that way ever since. Now everyone in Tindledale called him Sonny.

‘Yes,’ she smiled up at him. ‘I was just admiring the view and thinking what a marvelous place it is and that I’ll never, ever grow tired of living here.’ And she put her mug down on the grass before sweeping an appreciative hand across the glorious vista in front of them.

‘Well, you’ll never have to leave,’ he nodded, sitting on the bench beside her and pulling her in for a hug. We can grow old together here now that we’ve bought the pub from the brewery. I still can’t believe it’s actually ours and we’re no longer tenants.’

‘Thanks to your savings. And my dad, of course.’ Cher twiddled with a stray strand of hair that had escaped from her treacle-coloured beehive. It was a year ago that her dad, Bill, had died. He had been in his eighties and lived a lovely, long, happy life before slipping away peacefully one night in his sleep. Keen for his daughter to have security in these volatile times, Bill had left Cher enough of an inheritance so that with Sonny’s savings, and some money that she had also put by, they could buy the pub. Originally built in 1706 as a coaching inn, it had all the charm and whimsy of a traditional English pub with Tudor beams and a large Inglenook fireplace where a real log fire crackled away during the winter months, radiating a cosy glow through the mullioned windows. ‘Such a shame he had to go. I always thought he was invincible.’

‘I know, darling,’ Sonny soothed as he kissed her cheek and rubbed the palm of his hand up and down her arm, ‘he was a good’un.’

‘I guess I should be over it by now, but I do miss him so much. I went to call him earlier to tell him a joke that I overheard in the pub last night. You know how he loved a good joke. It’s daft really, that I sometimes totally forget he isn’t here ….’

‘No, love, it’s not daft at all,’ Sonny cut in, ‘your dad was an amazing man, larger than life. You’re bound to miss him ….’ He reached down to the grass to retrieve her mug before handing it to her. ‘And you can still talk to him, you know. He’s all around us. I bet he’s even earwigging right now.’ He laughed, shaking his head.

‘Thanks,’ she took the mug and drank the last of her tea. ‘And yes, you’re right. Dad always did love being nosey. People watching he called it,’ Cher smiled before tucking in to a slice of toast, licking her lips to savour the tangy sweet marmalade. ‘Fancy a slice?’ she offered the plate of toast to Sonny.