The Turning Point: A gripping love story, keep the tissues close...

The Turning Point: A gripping love story, keep the tissues close...
Freya North

“If you cried at Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You, get your hankies ready.” –Booklist (starred review)“Rich, romantic, beautifully drawn and utterly compelling” Jane Green, New York Times bestselling authorA poignant read with a heartbreaking twist for all fans of Me Before You.Two single parents, Frankie and Scott, meet unexpectedly. Their homes are far apart: Frankie lives with her children on the North Norfolk coast, Scott in the mountains of British Columbia. Yet though thousands of miles divide them, a million little things connect them. A spark ignites, a recognition so strong that it dares them to take a risk.For two families, life is about to change. But no-one could have anticipated how…

Copyright (#ulink_4f95bcec-dc2a-55bd-9e34-3274416ec40f)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Freya North 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photograph © Susan Fox / Trevillion Images | Author photograph © Angus Muir 2012

Freya North 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: 9780008163297

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008163594

Version: 2016-04-05

Dedication (#ulink_e9cbbc53-bb47-53af-9ceb-60a04cf5029e)

For Maureen Pegg and Jo Smith – my MoJo indeed.

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

La musique commence là ou s’arrête le pouvoir des mots. (Where music starts, words cease.)

Richard Wagner

Contents

Cover (#ue1b3a879-e31e-5ab4-8679-aaee6746a6b6)

Title Page (#uc0722c0b-a58a-5a92-8457-471c3e17398f)

Copyright (#u2e54251f-6a8d-5956-8208-e42825274a89)

Dedication (#u84b6867b-75a6-5ff6-b26c-78b1714dc0b5)

Epigraph (#u4d6e49f6-c37b-5def-a286-c2d55813e3c8)

Scott (#ud9b70def-68aa-586f-91a5-373cf0606ed9)

Frankie (#u4bdd429b-36e8-5dda-958f-9981150b12ec)

Part One: May to July (#u9d1134c7-9388-5d32-963a-bc70e8ac465c)

Part Two: July to December (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Three: April (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Four: After and Evermore (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Reading Group Questions (#litres_trial_promo)

Q&A with Freya (#litres_trial_promo)

A Letter from Freya (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on for an extract from THE WAY BACK HOME (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

SCOTT (#ulink_b25ba22e-a79a-5132-abca-59d87858a9f3)

Alone in his truck on an empty stretch of road in the middle of Thompson Country, Scott cursed out loud though no one could hear him. For the previous half an hour, as he drove from the belly of Kamloops and through the entrails of its suburbs, his phone signal had been off and the radio had played crystal clear everything he wanted to hear. His own personal playlist, beamed telepathically back through the radio, providing company and a soundtrack to the three hours remaining of the journey home. And now, as the road climbed and the scenery most deserved a rousing score, the music had gone and, instead, the cell-phone networks were polluting this immaculate part of British Columbia. His phone rang, his voicemail beeped, his phone rang again, his voicemail beeped. The sound wasn’t dissimilar from some god-awful plastic Europop. A barrage of text-message alerts now chimed in like a truly crap middle eight before the calls started again. The phone was in his bag, in the footwell. Whatever risks Scott had taken in his life, he’d only ever driven with two hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road ahead. He pulled over. What, for Christ’s sake, what?

The voicemail icon with its red spot as angry as a boil. The envelope signifying text messages bursting with four unread. Missed calls. Managing his phone was the only thing in life that Scott was prepared to multitask, because to minimize the time spent on it, was time well spent. He accessed the voicemail whilst clicking into the texts. Before he’d heard a thing he knew what was wrong from Jenna’s two words: