Lovers and Newcomers

Lovers and Newcomers
Rosie Thomas

From the bestselling author of Iris and Ruby comes a novel of a group of friends. They were wild in the 60s; but now they face turning sixty themselves.Miranda Meadowe decides a lonely widowhood in her crumbling country house is not for her. Reviving a university dream, she invites five of her oldest friends to come and join her to live, and to stave off the prospect of old age. All have their own reasons for accepting.To begin with, omens are good. They laugh, dance, drink and behave badly, as they cling to the heritage they thought was theirs for ever: power, health, stability. They are the baby boomers; the world is theirs to change. But as old attractions resurface alongside new tensions, they discover that the clock can’t be put back.When building work reveals an Iron Age burial site of a tribal queen, the outside world descends on their idyllic retreat, and the isolation of the group is breached. Now the past is revealed; and the future that beckons is very different from the one they imagined.

Lovers and Newcomers

Rosie Thomas

Copyright (#ulink_949dae38-e0d3-593b-a272-7ff36afcc5ef)

Published by 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 2010

Copyright © Rosie Thomas 2010

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016 Jacket photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Rosie Thomas 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: 9780007285945

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007321513

Version: 2016-04-20

Dedication (#ulink_7199b1b5-d8d2-54fb-8be5-619c08217b87)

To Theo

Contents

Cover (#u6768e2fa-6b7b-50ac-85d5-c31372f83fba)

Title Page (#ued0ff432-9bac-5864-b7b8-a84da8b929ba)

Copyright (#u5952c059-dde2-57cd-88d0-0265463cb3c8)

Dedication (#u24b61167-218f-55fc-9e86-64a6068c0f9c)

September (#u51edbc8c-421c-5d52-8df3-57de9c3ac213)

One (#u6a388328-8a9c-5337-b909-5dc60675127d)

Two (#u21c9d8cd-64d8-549f-a3e0-f414f8cef691)

October (#uce61f7ec-738e-542d-adc9-b42b8bec83d6)

Three (#u2f3cf387-b200-565c-8e52-d384d4de7e16)

Four (#u4bb46faa-026b-5e1c-952a-a73ab7ab8a4b)

Five (#litres_trial_promo)

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November (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

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Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

December (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

February (#litres_trial_promo)

Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Spring (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

June (#litres_trial_promo)

Miranda (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)