Return to Summerchester

By Hazel Elizabeth Allen

RETURN TO SUMMERCHESTER, takes us back to the idyllic South Coast, Seaside Market Town of Summerchester, introduced to us through Hazel Elizabeth Allen's Award Winning Novel, SUMMERCHESTER SECRETS and her short story SUMMERCHESTER REGRETS.

 

Top chef Jack English walks away from his fashionable London restaurant and takes over the running of a small café in his home town, in a bid to save his marriage.

Olympic hopeful Charlotte Penfold is recovering from a serious injury with the help of her brother Toby and is recuperating at his cliff top apartment.

Will life in the small seaside town of their childhood have the healing effects they both desire or will it bring them to breaking point as they Return to Summerchester?

   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hazel Elizabeth Allen
• Release date: May 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386497264

Hazel Elizabeth Allen

About the author Hazel Elizabeth Allen lives on the south coast of England with her husband, BBC Radio presenter David Allen. She was born in London but grew up in Bath. Spending her formative years in this beautiful city, with its historic architecture, has inspired and influenced her writing. Hazel loves walking, especially along the coastal paths of the south coast and north Devon. It is often on these walks that she formulates many of her best story ideas. Her debut novel Summerchester Secrets was named Winner in the ROMANCE category of the 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. If you enjoyed reading any of Hazel’s books please visit her website hazelelizabethallen.com to see what she is planning to publish next and to join her email list. Other titles by Hazel Elizabeth Allen SUMMERCHESTER SECRETS:                             Winner, Best Romance Novel, 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.  Paperback and ebook. RETURN TO SUMMERCHESTER: Novella, available as an ebook and in paperback. SUMMERCHESTER REGRETS: Short story, available as an ebook.

Book preview

About the author

Hazel Elizabeth Allen lives on the south coast of England with her husband, BBC Radio presenter David Allen. She was born in London but grew up in Bath. Spending her formative years in this beautiful city, with its historic architecture, has inspired and influenced her writing. Hazel loves walking, especially along the coastal paths of the south coast and north Devon. It is often on these walks that she formulates many of her best story ideas.

Her debut novel Summerchester Secrets was named Winner in the ROMANCE category of the 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. If you enjoyed reading any of Hazel’s books please visit her website hazelelizabethallen.com to see what she is planning to publish next and to join her email list.

––––––––

Other titles by Hazel Elizabeth Allen

––––––––

SUMMERCHESTER SECRETS 

Winner, Best Romance Novel, 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Paperback and ebook.

SUMMERCHESTER REGRETS

Short story, featuring a character from Summerchester Secrets.

Available as an ebook.

LETTING GO

Novel, paperback and ebook.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR A FREE COPY OF THE SHORT STORY

––––––––

SUMMERCHESTER REGRETS

––––––––

Hazel Elizabeth Allen| Author| Contemporary Romantic Fiction

IMG_0008.JPG

RETURN TO SUMMERCHESTER

––––––––

by Hazel Elizabeth Allen

Text copyright © 2017 Hazel Elizabeth Allen

All Rights Reserved

Table of Content

Chapter 1: Jack

Chapter 2: Toby

Chapter 3: Charlotte

Chapter 4: Laura

Chapter 5: Coming Together

Chapter 6: Stormy Weather

Chapter 7: Becoming Friends

Chapter 8: All Change

Chapter 9: End of the Season

Chapter 10: The Close of the Year

Chapter 1: Jack

As soon as Jack English walked into the kitchen and saw the expression on his wife’s face he knew he was in for another row. This appeared to be the only way they communicated these days. She threw allegations at him and he retaliated with frustration.

Clare had been unhappy for some time, but just recently Jack had detected a subtle change in her demeanour. It felt to him that she had stopped trying to make it work, given up on the fight to save their marriage, settling instead for a constant round of scathing comments, hours of reproachful silences and shows of despondency. He felt sad at the memory of how blissfully happy and content they had been at the start, compared to now.

‘Coffee?’ she asked.

He nodded cautiously, as if it were a trick question, his senses vigilant, on high alert, ready for the argument which she was undoubtedly building up to. He took the mug of freshly brewed black coffee from her and went to take a seat at the broad central breakfast bar. Before sitting down he yawned, arched his spine in order to stretch his tired back muscles and rubbed his eyes with fatigue. He was exhausted after working ten days in a row at the restaurant without a break.

It was two am and he was surprised to find his wife still up, let alone that she had brewed him some coffee. Whatever she had to say to him, it was clearly important enough for her to feel it could not wait until the morning. He watched her wearily as she went to the refrigerator and proceeded to pour herself a glass of milk. Dressed in a pale pink, silk nightdress and matching dressing gown, her slim figure was silhouetted in the light of the refrigerator and her long blonde hair flowed down her back like a spun gold. She looked great and had altered little in the twelve years they had known each other, and he still found her immensely attractive, especially when she smiled, which was a rare occurrence of late.

Clare came to sit opposite him. Her expression was one of sadness but also, Jack thought, a certain amount of resignation and this worried him.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked tentatively. He suspected he already knew the answer as he had listened to her complaints so many times before.

She looked down for a moment as if she was marshalling her thoughts and when she glanced up again and met his gaze her eyes were bright with unshed tears. This set alarm bells ringing in his head and he suddenly felt acutely alert and apprehensive.

‘Oh Clare,’ he responded. ‘I don’t like to see you like this.’

She shook her head and batted away his kind words with a wave of her hand. She was clearly fighting with her emotions and trying not to break down. Averting her gaze from his for a moment she took a sip of her milk and he mirrored her by taking a swig of coffee. His mind was racing. What was she about to tell him? He felt sick wondering what she wanted to say.

Then she looked at him again and this time she appeared more determined to speak her mind. ‘I don’t think I can do this any more.’

He didn’t like the tone of her voice; she wasn’t angry, just sad. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked, not really wanting to hear her answer.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied, her eyes cast down as she spoke.

‘What can I do, what is it you want?’

Her head shot up and she looked straight at him, a flash of anger showing in her eyes, but then her features softened once more.

He could sense that for once she didn’t want an argument, as he had wrongly assumed when he first arrived back home after a gruelling shift in the sweltering kitchen of his restaurant.

‘I have decided to take Laura to Summerchester for the summer. She finishes school on Friday, and I want you to come with us.’

‘What? Leave the restaurant during one of our busiest periods?’ he looked at her incredulously.

She nodded slowly, with an expression of calm determination on her face. ‘Be honest Jack, the restaurant is always busy, all year round, and your dad phoned today, the warden-controlled flat in the sheltered housing complex he likes, you know, the one he has been patiently waiting for, has finally come up and he needs our help moving in. He wants us to take over the big house and use it as our weekend retreat and holiday home, and maybe our permanent home one day, which I think is amazingly generous.’

Jack nodded, ‘Yes, he did mention something about it when we last spoke, but I really don’t know how practical an idea that is, I think it makes more sense to sell. After all we’re not going to get down to the coast often enough to make it viable.’

Clare sighed. ‘I don’t think you’re getting what I am trying to say here. I’m taking Laura to Summerchester, but unless you come with us and give our marriage a fighting chance then at the end of the summer we won’t be coming back.’

Now she had his attention. Jack’s expression was one of disbelief. ‘You’re leaving me?’

She covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head slowly. He could tell she was fighting back the tears. ‘No Jack, I’m asking you to come with us, let’s start afresh, leave London, let someone else worry about the restaurant for a while. You’re always telling me that Mario could run the kitchen easily now and how happy you are with how he’s getting on, well perhaps it’s time to give him the freedom to try. Or sell up; you could practically retire on the proceeds of such a sale.’

‘Retire? But I’m not even forty yet.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied with a sigh of frustration. ‘All I do know is I’m lonely, I’m tired of living in London, we barely see you and when you are here you’re tired and like a bear with a sore head. Laura has stopped asking me when you are coming home; she appears to have accepted your absence as being normal, which I think is sad. If you’re not careful you are going to miss your little girl growing up and you won’t get that time back when it’s gone. We’re all missing out of any kind of family life and I’m afraid I just can’t take much more.’

Jack had heard it all before, but he still didn’t want to accept that the situation was as bad as she was describing. ‘But we