The cat of the Baskervilles

We have to put our bins out by 5.30 am on collection day, so out went the recycling bin in the dark while waves of fog rolled down the lane at the back of the house. Sorry, this isn’t as sweet and romantic as it sounds because it’s a back access road for two rows of houses and very useful for deliveries and kids to ride their bikes. The street lights were dim yellow glows, so I had my big torch with me, and the air was clammy and wet. It was the sort of eerie morning when things could happen, and I wasn’t totally awake.

I am still very, very proud that I did not yelp or scream when something touched my hair and then slid gently down the side of my face. I looked up into the darkness of the trees… and then our beautiful cat opened beautiful golden eyes, leapt from the tree to the top of the shed to the garden walls and went on her way. I could only see the back end of her, but I still knew she was smirking!

The fogs have been worse this year than I can remember them being, and we can smell them even though we’re a little over a mile from the sea, but they burn off midmorning and the rest of the days have been glorious. What I call cardigan weather for obvious reasons. Warm enough to sit and watch the leaves falling and the cats pouncing on them. Warm enough to walk along by the harbour and watch the birds changing over. It can’t be long now before the Brent Geese and Turnstones arrive. They’re usually here by now, but they judge by the weather we’ve got, not the weather the forecasters say we ought to have.

The starlings have come down from Scotland, so the weather change is coming, and I’m looking forward to it as much as I’ve enjoyed this strange summer. I’m even enjoying the muffled world as I write this because it’s unnaturally quiet and I can barely see the bottom of the road. Better still, we’ve got heavy rain forecast tomorrow, so it’ll be a day for snuggling in and maybe even the first hot chocolate of the year. I’m expecting some parcels today, so I can organise my new treasure. Okay, a pumice stone loo cleaner isn’t everyone’s idea of treasure, but anything that deals with our hard water which is harder than usual because the water in the aquifer that provides our spring water is low after the hot summer without chemicals will be good.

In fact, life will be good, even if I don’t quite know what it’ll be like. And here, before you see the details of the books that are on offer at 99c in the US and 99p in the UK is a picture of a fog-free harbour. See you on Sunday, and take care.

Special offers this week...

Letters from a Spy (June 4)

It’s Mothering Sunday at Swansmere, and two of Amy Hammonds favourite people have decided to celebrate what they call their ‘not quite mother’. The cake is amazing, lunch is better, and the gifts are thoughtfully chosen. What could possibly go wrong?

How about two dismembered bodies in the secret passageway, a group of Americans who want to steal them and are prepared to threaten Lord Fenton and high-ranking members of the American CIA taking an interest?

Sometimes, the past just won’t stay buried, and there are stories that have to be told because people don’t want them to be. So it’s just as well that Amy, her husband, the nothing like as retired as he claims that he wants to be, spy Brigadier Peter Cunningham and his team of young agents and unlikely assistants are on hand to solve a problem that troubled a much-loved member of Helena’s family for a long time.

But how much will resolving it cost her, and what will they all find out about themselves? And will Amy have a happy Mothering Sunday despite it all?

Vintage Girl Summer

Twenty-one-year-old Gracie Allen is determined to make her dream of making a career from vintage fashion and upcycling come true. Until that happens, she runs her own small business cleaning holiday cottages and getting them ready for their wealthy owners. On top of that, she’s just got a job at the cafe and farm shop at Druett Manor at Windy Bay, and she's hoping to persuade them to let her sell some of her work. Life's looking good until she narrowly avoids being hit by a speeding lorry as she cycles to the Manor for her first day at work.

Estate Manager Adam Grant is far more shocked when most people would be when he rescues her from the hedge that she landed in when she came off her bike, because it brings back memories of his wife and unborn baby, who were killed by a hit-and-run driver. He’s determined that Gracie is going to have all the opportunities that they couldn’t, so he mentors her and helps her to brand herself as The Vintage Girl and open a shop at Druett Manor.

They’re holding a vintage fair at the Manor to launch their new wedding business, but can two people who’ve sworn off love for very different reasons change their minds? Can Adam move past his tragic past and dare to let himself love again? And can Gracie resolve the complicated childhood that left her with the nickname of DisGracie and realise that she’s well worth loving?

It’s going to be complicated, so it’s a good job that they’re at Windy Bay, where dreams can come true if you only believe hard enough and happy new beginnings start every day

Elf n Safety

The last thing single mum Mel needs is to be found dangling from a drainpipe while dressed as an elf by a man who’s already seen her at her most vulnerable.

The last thing that events organiser Rory needed was his Santa and all his elves being poached by the unscrupulous local businessman who raped Mel five years before and left her pregnant with her beloved son.

But what you need and what you get are often very different things, so Mel finds herself with a new job as head elf and organiser of a very different kind of Christmas. She and Rory have to work closely together, especially since Slimy Simon, or Slimon as Rory insists on calling him, is determined to spoil things.

Can Rory and Mel make a perfect Christmas in that little Dorset village of Windy Bay that’s so close to the sea and the hills? Or will tragedy strike just when there should have been the happiest of endings?

Spring in the Heart at Windy Bay

Sally Clark has been widowed for almost twenty years and fled to live as far away from the sea as she could after her husband died. Now she’s back in Windy Bay and loving running the farm shop/cafe/gift shop at Druett Manor. She’s got a gorgeous grandson, a lovely baby granddaughter, and gets on well with her daughter and his husband, so all she needs for life to be pretty much perfect is a place to live.

Sandy Allen built his dream housing development to provide homes for all his children, but now has to accept that their lives have taken them in different directions. He also rashly promised them that he’d start dating again, so when Sally rescues and looks after him when he has a fall while out running, he thinks he’s found a solution to both their problems.

Can two people who’ve been hurt in different ways find a future together?

Will their families ever stop meddling with the best of intentions?

And can spring in Windy Bay bring a new spring in their lives, or are they both too proud and independent to compromise?

House of Dreams

Ex-socialite and professional rebel Linnet Halliday is an unlikely property developer who's fallen in love with the idea of bringing an old house, and its outbuildings back to life with some affordable and some luxury homes. Nathan Blake is a former banker who became a landscape gardener when he reassessed his life after a serious car crash.

Both of them have a lot to prove, and the last thing that either of them wants is a matchmaking ghost, especially since neither of them believes in ghosts. As obstacles mount and danger looms, they not only come to believe in the ghost of Lavender House but find out that she's a literal lifesaver.

Can Lavinia help them to find the happy ending that she couldn't have for herself? Or will tragedy strike again?

Ghost of Dreams

Andie Halliday is trying to rebuild her life after escaping her abusive husband.

Ex-Marine Ben Cameron is struggling to cope with grief and build a new life for his motherless daughter.

Both of them find much-needed shelter at the development of houses that Andie's sister has converted from the big old Lavender House, but they’re both determined that they've given up on love.

Neither of them believes in ghosts, and especially not the ghost of Lavinia Cunningham, who lost her fiancé in the last days of World War Two. She hid herself away for the rest of her life while she developed the spectacular gardens, but since she’s been dead, she's realised how important love is and is determined to stop other people making the mistakes that she made and help them to find them the happy ending that she didn't get.

Andie's husband doesn't want to let her go and fights dirty, and Ben's haunted by ghosts of his own. Will Andie run away again, or will she decide that her new love is worth fighting for and break the habits of a lifetime spent trying to please everyone else?

Can Ben move past his fear of loss and see the possibility of a new life? Lavinia knows what she intends to happen, but even a ghost can only do so much when they're dealing with two very stubborn people.

Ghost of A Chance

Reluctant psychic Cassandra Franklin finds shelter at the Lavender House estate on the gorgeous Dorset coast after failing to avert a tragedy.

Determined bachelor and millionaire software developer Patrick Quinn inherited the old house from his late Great Aunt Lavinia, who isn't anything like as departed as he thinks she is. He now lives in the penthouse of the house that was once her home, and is fed up with women who want a relationship with his wallet rather than him! They meet on someone else’s wedding day and make it clear that they're not interested in each other, then decide that if they let people see what they want to see, then they might stop matchmaking!  Only Lavinia Cunningham, the ghost of Lavender House, knows better and has plans of her own and a ticking deadline.

Cassie wanted to leave her past behind, but Lavinia is determined that she has to save Patrick, and the more premonitions Cassie has, the more she knows that the resolutely sceptical Patrick needs to be saved from his own stubbornness, even if he may not always deserve it.

Can Cassie rely on her visions of a happy outcome to a pregnancy for a new friend?

Can Patrick come to terms with her unique talent and his own psychic ability?

Can the ghost of Lavender House show her nephew how much she loved him and how important love is by preventing another tragedy and helping two stubborn people to find love and a forever home?

Surely she's in with more than a ghost of a chance?

A time to fight

Local radio reporter Rebecca Jordan and solicitor Simon Thomsett team up to investigate local businessman Russell Monroe after they hear him threatening his ex-wife, who vanishes a few days later.

They might be neighbours, but they’d hardly noticed each other until then, and they definitely don’t believe in matchmaking ghosts who are determined to make sure that the people who move into her old home find the happiness that she wasn't able to because her fiancé died at the end of the Second World War. Rebecca still finds herself calling Simon for help after someone leaves a dead rat in her car, along with a message warning her not to interfere if she knows what's good for her

Soon afterwards, Simon's employers tell him to back off or else, but that makes both of them all the more determined to carry on, so they decided to work together to find out what Russell Monroe is so determined to hide before anyone can get hurt. As they do that, they both have to decide who they are, what they stand for, and what they want from their lives and who they want to share them with. Passions run high in just about every possible way, so the ghost of Lavender House has really got her work cut out this time.

Sunshine and Shadow

Callie Jones is opening her own quilting and needlework shop after she was forced out of the job she loved.

Michael Halliday’s dream of building something for himself after years of putting everyone else first, while he cared for his younger brothers after his parents’ death, means just as much to him.

One of them is going to have to back down or compromise, but neither of them has ever been any good at doing that.

Callie lives at Lavender House, where the resident ghost knows that no one is ordinary and everyone deserves to have at least some of their dreams come true, even though no one can ever have it all. She'll have to be even sneakier than usual if she's going to succeed in her duty of making sure that the people who come to live in her old home have the happy ending that she wasn't able to have.

Love Always

Widow Pippa Lloyd is struggling to make a new life when she moves into a flat in Lavender House so that she can set up a museum honouring the pilots and boat girls of the flying boats that were the UK’s only link with the rest of the world during much of World War Two. She’s been struggling to deal with people, so she wasn’t expecting the friendship that she finds there, especially from diver and local history enthusiast Neil Hanlon.

Nor was she expecting the ghost of Lavender House to decide that it was time for her story to be told, or for that history to involve her Great Uncle Ian, who was a flying boat pilot.

Can she, Neil and everyone at Lavender House find a happy ending for the ghost who’s done so much to bring them all together? Or are there some secrets that should never be told?