IN THE SUMMERTIME
Miranda's step-father Jack has died and she, her two teenage children and her mother Clare are taking his ashes to the Cornish village where the family once had a holiday home as he'd wished to be scattered on the sea there.
It's twenty years since their last visit to Chapel Creek, where the then sixteen year-old Miranda had her first proper romance with local fisherman Steve. She's never forgotten him (or the consequences of that affair) or all the summer friends she used to have among those who owned holiday homes in the village. Life has long since moved on and so, she assumes, Steve will have too.
This holiday isn't easy for Miranda as she has to cope with her mother's grief, her sister Harriet's broken heart (and Harriet's awful footballer ex) her squabbling teenagers and their new-found fragile friendships. And yet – from day one familiar faces start to turn up and Miranda finds she is gradually absorbed back into the old seaside village events, as are her mother and her sister.
This book came about because (like all writers) I still have a very soft spot for my first book. It was called Just For The Summer and every now and then over the years I've wondered what would have happened to the characters I'd created all that time ago. So I revisited them, gave them a reason to return to the seaside village of Chapel Creek and took it from there, bringing back several characters from that first book. A lot of loose ends have been tied up, a lot of resolutions have come about and I'm very happy now to leave them alone. Or at least, for another twenty years...