Choir member Molly sees a young boy who she's convinced is her grandson, but how does she find out the truth when her son Philip ran away to New Zealand five years ago?
Meanwhile Molly's daughter Emily has fallen in love for the second time in her life. Except this time it's with the wrong man ...
While choir leader Christopher, who closed off his heart to love a long time ago, is making do with snatched trysts with new member Jane - who also happens to be married. But then American author Freddie moves in next door and suddenly things begin to get complicated.
As performance night approaches, the heatwave breaks and members of the choir discover that their lives intertwine more than they could ever have imagined. But are the inhabitants of the town ready for what happens next?
Guest Post: Food Glorious Food!
My name is Roisin Meaney and I am a foodaholic. My most successful
relationship to date (sigh) has been with food: I love it to bits, and I’m
pretty confident it loves me right back. I will eat virtually anything that’s
placed in front of me, even if it’s not something I’d necessarily choose from a
menu. The only area I would be a little iffy about is the whole shellfish
scenario, particularly if the shell in question contains something whose
texture is a little . . . wobbly. Oysters in particular would test my love, but
if pushed, I’d be prepared to wash them down with an ocean of Guinness. Love
means never having to say no thanks, I’d rather a steak.
Surprisingly, given the great depth of my affection for food, I am
not and never will be an accomplished cook. I am one of a gang of four who
rotate the dinner parties between our houses. One of the other three is a born
cook – she just flings things into a pan, or a pot, or the oven, and a meal of
fabulous deliciousness emerges. The other two, while not as inspired in the
kitchen as the first, are pretty solid cooks, and always deliver very tasty
dinners indeed.
I’m definitely the weakest link. For the three days before it’s my
turn, I’m poring over cookbooks and trawling the internet for something that
can be prepared with pretty much no culinary skills, and that will look and
taste amazing. On the day in question I start preparing at roughly nine in the
morning; by seven, when my guests are due, the kitchen is a bomb site, my
nerves are frazzled, and the meal is done but looks nothing like it should. My
friends are kind and say the right things, and I always make sure to have
plenty of wine, so I get away with it – but we all know that if I gave up
writing in the morning and attempted to earn my living as a chef, I would
become very poor very quickly.
Strangely, in the normal course of events (when there isn’t a dinner
party hanging over me) I love nothing better than to pore over cookbooks: I
have a stack of them. What’s more, I love writing about food, describing
dishes, finding words that’ll make readers’ mouths water. So in virtually every
book to date I’ve shoehorned in some sort of excuse to allow me to wallow in
this. Lizzie in The Daisy Picker
loves to bake. The three featured couples in Putting Out the Stars take turns at dinner parties, with mixed
results (writing from personal experience much?) Hannah opens her own cupcake
shop in Love in the Making. In The People Next Door Dan attends cookery
classes in an effort to better himself. Anton from Brittany in Half Seven on a Thursday cooks fish stew
and rosemary lamb cutlets for his flatmates. In One Summer Nell tries out different wedding cakes. In Something in Common, accomplished cook
Sarah sends non-cook Helen simple recipes for vegetable croquettes and chicken
pie. And so on.
It’s the closest I’ll get to being a cook. And to be honest, it’s as
close as I want to get. I’m happy out to let someone else do the cooking, as
long as they let me do the eating.
Thank you to Roisin for the lovely guest post! The Street Where You Live is out now!
This looks interesting! Not something I would normally pick up but I may have to anyway :)
ReplyDeleteMegan @ Ginger Mom