Today is my stop on the blog tour for Christmas With The Teashop Girls by Elaine Everest. I have an extract to share with you today but don't forget to check out the other stops on the tour for more exclsive content and reviews. Christmas with the Teashop Girls by Elaine Everest is out now, published by Pan Macmillan, priced £7.99 as paperback original. You can click here to order your copy now!
Here's what it's all about...
The friends return in a moving story of love, bravery and hope set in 1940 – a guaranteed
winter warmer full of festive spirit.
Bestseller Elaine Everest is the author of the muchloved Woolworths Girls saga series.
It’s late 1940 and the war feels closer to home than ever for Rose Neville and her staff at the Lyon’s
Teashop in Margate. The worry of rationing hangs overhead as the Nippies do their best to provide a
happy smile and a hot cup of tea for their customers. When a bombing raid targets the Kent
coastline, Lyon’s is badly hit, throwing the future of the cafe into jeopardy.
The light in Rose’s life is her dashing fiancé Captain Ben Hargreaves and she’s busy planning their
Christmas Eve wedding. But she must also plan to take two new stepdaughters into her life and get
on the right side of her wealthy mother-in-law, Lady Diana. Is Rose ready to become a mother?
When Rose’s half-sister Eileen makes contact, it seems that Rose’s dreams of having a sibling are
coming true at long last. But her friends begin to suspect that she’s hiding something… As the
wedding draws near, the bombings intensify, putting everything and everyone Rose loves in danger.
Only one thing is for sure: it will be a Christmas she never forgets . . .
Here's that extract for you...
‘Oh Miss Neville, I’m that thrilled for you,’ the young Nippy exclaimed as Rose walked into the staffroom of the Lyons teashop she managed in Margate. ‘Fancy being engaged to an army captain! Show us your engagement ring?’
Rose smiled at the girl standing in front of her. ‘Thank you, Edie. I’m afraid I don’t have the ring yet – my fiancé is having it altered. His grandmother’s fingers were larger than mine,’ she explained as she looked down at the slim fingers of her left hand, thinking back to the moment Ben had slipped the ring on after formally proposing.
‘You mean it’s second-hand, Miss? I’d have thought a posh bloke like him could have afforded to buy you something new,’ Edie said, giving her a pitying look. ‘When my sister got engaged to her chap, she had a new ring, and he’s only a corporal.’
‘You are a silly child,’ a familiar voice said from behind Rose. ‘Do you not know that Captain Benjamin is a man who comes from the landed gentry of England? What our Miss Neville is to be wearing on her finger will be an ancient heirloom,’ Anya Polinski reprimanded the girl. ‘Show some respect to our manageress,’ she added with a dismissive sniff, looking down her nose at the younger woman – something that was easily done, since Anya stood a head taller than most of the staff in the teashop.
The younger staff members were unsure of their Polish colleague, who always carried an air of authority even though she was just like them, albeit a ‘Sally’ who looked after the front counter of the Lyons teashop, where she served customers with all manner of goods. The older staff found her helpful and knowledgeable, although they too were in awe of the woman who’d left her homeland and come all the way to Thanet in search of her pilot husband, Henio. When the couple had been reunited, more than one Nippy had been heard to sigh at the romance of it, remarking that Anya’s life was straight out of an edition of The People’s Friend.
Rose clapped her hands together to gain the attention of the other Nippies and Sallys. ‘Ladies, we have but fifteen minutes before the doors open to our customers,’ she said with a smile, before taking a look at the notes in her hand. ‘I would like to inspect your uniforms first, and then I will give you some news about a few staff changes that will affect our work here at the Margate teashop while I’m away in London. I trust you all to carry on your hard work while I’m absent.’
This was met with excited chatter and nods of agreement before a hush fell as Rose walked along the line of Nippies, checking their black uniform dresses, white cuffs and collars were clean. ‘Annie, your hem is coming down. You will find thread and needles in the drawer,’ she instructed a newer Nippy, nodding towards the large table where the staff sat while taking breaks for their meals. ‘There is also red thread, for any of you who have loose pearl buttons,’ she added as many of the women ran their hands down the fronts of their dresses, where two neat rows of white pearl buttons ran from their collars to the waistbands of their crisp white aprons.
‘Please, Miss Neville, I have a ladder in my stocking. If there is time, may I change it? I didn’t notice until I was on my way to work,’ an older Nippy asked. ‘Most certainly you may.’ Rose smiled, pleased that her team took such pride in their appearance. She’d not found one dirty fingernail, and each worker had clean, shiny hair underneath the white starched caps bearing the Lyons badge.
About The Author
Elaine Everest is from North West Kent and she grew up listening to stories of the
war years in her home town of Erith, which features in her bestselling Woolworths
Girls series. A former journalist, and author of nonfiction books for dog owners,
Elaine has written over sixty short stories for the women's magazine market.
When she isn't writing, Elaine runs The Write Place creative writing school in
Hextable, Kent. She lives with her husband, Michael and sheepdog Henry. You can
find out more about Elaine on Twitter @ElaineEverest or Facebook /elaine.everest
No comments:
Post a Comment