Cloud Nine

Cloud Nine
Luanne Rice

A deeply moving and resonant novel about the power of love and family feeling in the face of suffering and change.A beloved only child, Sarah was brought up on a wild island, where the people were as one with the landscape and where her father, George, farmed geese. After her mother died of cancer, he brought her up alone, but their lives were further twisted by trouble after Sarah was jilted by Zeke, an island boy, who left her pregnant and devastated. Shortly afterwards, Zeke was killed in a car crash, and Sarah fled the island for a new life on the mainland, leaving her father feeling rejected and angry.Now, fourteen years later, Sarah, making a living through her quilting business called Cloud Nine, is herself recovering from cancer. The illness threatened more than her life – the trauma brought to a head her difficult relationship with her son, Mike, who finally left her to go and live with his grandfather.It is at this point that their lives elide with another tragic family. Will Burke, the pilot she charters to visit Mike, has never recovered from the death of his own teenage son, which wrecked his marriage and has left his daughter Susan like a piece of flotsam drifting between Will, her mother and her mother’s ghastly new husband. In the tense, emotive story that unfolds, all their lives are changed as love, hope and endurance eventually find a way to transcend suffering.

Copyright (#ulink_fbd27f7c-e4fc-573c-8d59-358f58862459)

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.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

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

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999

Copyright © Luanne Rice 1999

Luanne Rice 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

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780006512929

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008226497

Version: 2016-10-25

Praise (#ulink_31bc7472-9571-57e3-abfd-0d6e7896ea6d)

Acclaim for Cloud Nine:

‘In quiet, unassuming prose, Rice fashions a tightly paced story that is hard to put down’

Publishers Weekly

‘Immensely moving … Tender and heartbreaking’

IRIS JOHANSEN, author of The Face of Deception

‘With her elegant style and gift for painting scenery with words, Rice hooks the reader on the first page’

Denver Post

‘Warm, smart, and deeply touching. This is a novel filled with poignant emotion and the fine, soft twist of elegant storytelling’

DEBORAH SMITH, author of When Venus Fell

Dedication (#ulink_e25a16da-13fa-5557-a478-7e0d591ac6f7)

For

Robert F. Monteleone, Jr

Contents

Cover (#u1c414886-910c-5ffb-ac3a-dd223cca2283)

Title Page (#u32a232a5-a01e-5f92-b1d9-064b6d19726f)

Copyright (#ulink_ee02d91a-a901-5559-b465-fb3a74149c68)

Praise (#ulink_12ccbc5f-f06a-53ac-83a9-6b6a10da2f29)

Dedication (#ulink_f43a16b2-dfec-5bce-bc17-480ebdf17f5d)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_57a5f61f-1fca-5b1f-8ddb-972eefdd3ff0)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_76661884-6146-5a87-a86b-99b65e17448f)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_07421dc0-2af0-51b7-b3d0-9d0590ca170b)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_8d8f14e4-9787-5736-b33e-070194dc91bc)

Chapter 5 (#ulink_616eacf9-fc0d-5e3e-8883-8f4f10671161)

Chapter 6 (#ulink_1e2f2a19-97f9-50d9-8890-6b8121434680)

Chapter 7 (#ulink_1fc3c476-d400-5933-b386-f4c5f2703706)

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)