The Christmas Rose: The most heart-warming novel of 2018, from the Sunday Times bestseller

The Christmas Rose: The most heart-warming novel of 2018, from the Sunday Times bestseller
Dilly Court

The third book in the stunning ‘River Maid’ series from Sunday Times bestseller, Dilly Court!Standing on London’s Victoria docks with the wind biting through her shawl, Rose Munday realises she’s been abandoned by her sweetheart. She had risked everything to get to London but, stumbling through the peasoup fog, she has nowhere to go, and no one to turn to.Scared and alone, Rose steps straight into danger, only to be rescued by two women with even less to their names – a woman of the night and her young sidekick, Sparrow. With only a cluster of love letters to her name and all hope of her sweetheart’s return fading, Rose finds herself forging a new life with her unlikely companions.But when a good deed turns sour, a dangerous enemy threatens to ruin them all. Will Rose be able to save her new friends and her future? If she can, a Christmas gift awaits that will change her life forever…

Copyright (#u40ff26be-dccf-51e8-9218-248f909f4da2)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Dilly Court 2018

Jacket Photographs: © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (Girl); © Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy (street scene), © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com) (all other images)

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Dilly Court 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: 9780008199685

Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9780008199692

Version: 2018-10-01

Dedication (#u40ff26be-dccf-51e8-9218-248f909f4da2)

For Sam Avant.

Contents

Title Page (#u41774152-e1b9-5891-a8bc-f71f9755e2d7)

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six