Today you can enjoy an extract from the new novel by Faith Bleasdale, called A Year At Meadowbook Manor, as part of the blog tour!
Title: A Year At Meadowbrook Manor
Author: Faith Bleasdale
Publisher: Avon Books – HarperCollins UK
[Synopsis]
The Singer siblings are back at Meadowbrook Manor and their father has one last request…
Harriet Singer hasn’t been home in ten years, her days focused on work and very little play since moving to New York… But when her father dies Harriet jumps on a plane to England right away, planning to be heading back to NYC in the morning.
But her father has other ideas…
To gain their inheritance all four Singer siblings must live together at Meadowbrook Manor for one year, caring for the house and working at the Animal Sanctuary set up within the grounds.
Having drifted apart over the years, the relationship between the siblings is at best fractured. But could trading in her high heels for wellington’s be just what Harriet needs to get her life back on track? Especially with her teenage crush back home too…
Spend a year at Meadowbrook Manor, the only heart-warming novel you need to read this year!
[Extract – Chapter 6, 59 – 60]
Harriet opened her computer. She knew the drill; it would be easier to email Zach, who never took his eyes off his mailbox, and get him to call her urgently. She needed reassurance from him that this was a terrible idea and that there was no way she would be able to stay at Meadowbrook for even a month let alone a year.
Zachary Matthews, the man she had walked into the interview room ten years ago with a desperate need to impress. He was tall, with curly brown hair, dark eyes, and a presence so commanding she was drawn to him like a magnet. She was so focused on the job, nothing would stand in her way of the much-wanted move to New York. Her and Zach worked closely together and at some point they ended up in bed together. It hadn’t happened overnight, it had taken almost five years before anything happened. A work trip to Washington, too much wine with dinner, and then up to his hotel room. He didn’t sugarcoat anything, romance it certainly wasn’t, but that was what Harriet wanted, needed, understood. No strings, nothing to detract from her job, no emotions. Harriet didn’t even know if she had emotions anymore. They were the same person; driven by making money, excited by the deal, obsessed by work, by succeeding.
She didn’t focus too much on the fact that she was sleeping with a married man. And every time her moral compass seemed to right itself and she decided to end things, Zach would smile at her and they’d end up in bed. Was she the only one? She doubted it. But there was something powerful about him. And something safe. Harriet certainly didn’t worry about him falling in love with her and she didn’t need to worry about falling in love with him. She had let that happen once and it didn’t end well.
But now her father had died. Which made her question what the hell she was doing.
She took a deep breath as she opened up her email and, scanning through the spam, she noticed an email from work. It was from the director of HR, with Zach copied in. As her thumping heart slowed to a dull thud, she felt bile rising in her stomach as she read it.
A Year at Meadowbrook Manor is available to buy now.
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