Synopsis
A heartfelt novel of a Christmas shadowed by loss and regret—and brightened by hope for renewal—from the author of Time Will Tell.
Six-year-old Jack is counting the days to Christmas. But his grandmother is just counting the days until it’s over. For Jill, the holiday comes with painful memories, and she wants only to escape the recent past and its tragedies.
She’s moved and started a new life running a food truck in Widmore Bay, a quaint seaside town, in order to flee her agonising history.
It’s only for little Jack’s sake that Jill tolerates the tree and decorations. She just wants to spend Christmas with the curtains drawn, reading a book and drinking coffee.
But this season, she may stumble onto a miracle that restores joy—and hope—in her heart . . .
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Excerpt
Jill hugged her mug with both hands and took another sip of coffee, her eye drawn to the gallery of sticky-fingered drawings and paintings covering the fridge. From there her gaze drifted, as it always did, to the picture on the wall where another child’s drawing of a heart, creased and dog-eared, hung in a frame. Worthless to anyone else, it was priceless to her. She looked away again, tears pricking her eyes.
Get a grip, she reminded herself. Mary would be round shortly, and the last thing she wanted was for her to think she’d been crying. Not that Mary would mind. She was an angel and Jill was so glad of her friendship. She wondered, though, if her grief would lessen over time. If there would come a day that she didn’t think about that terrible morning and everything that followed. It was almost two years since it happened, and it still felt as raw now as it did then. So she doubted it.
Glancing at the calendar on the wall, she sighed. It was the 1st of December. That meant she had twenty-five days to prepare herself, or, as she preferred to think of it, twenty-five days to get her shit together. She’d already decided to keep the build-up to Christmas to a minimum, to do as little as she could get away with, but as yet, she still had no plans for the day itself.
If she lived alone, she’d ignore it completely. And not just Christmas Day, the whole thing. There’d be no tree, no decorations, and no Christmas shopping. And come Christmas morning, she’d keep the curtains drawn and stay in bed all day, reading, and drinking coffee. Lunch would be soup and bread, and in the evening, she might watch a film or two, just nothing festive.
Author Bio
Eva Jordan was born in Kent but has lived most of her life in a small Cambridgeshire town. She describes herself as a lover of words, books, travel and chocolate, and is also partial to the odd glass or two of wine. Eva is both a mum and step mum to four adult children, all of whom have, at times, inspired her writing and her family based novels. Her career has been varied including working for the library service and at a women’s refuge. A member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Eva also writes a monthly column for a local magazine and says storytelling through the art of writing is her passion. 183 Times A Year is Eva’s debut novel, followed by All The Colours In Between, and Time Will Tell.
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