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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
The News Building
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First published in Great Britain in ebook format in 2019 by HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright © Cressida McLaughlin 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019.
Cover illustration © May Van Millingen
Cressida McLaughlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008332167
Version: 2019-06-03
Table of Contents
From Charlie’s spot on Penzance Harbour, St Michael’s Mount was a regal, impressive structure. It sat above the sparkling blue water like a beacon while, around it, a summer mist gave everything a hazy, dreamlike quality. But inside The Cornish Cream Tea Bus, it was anything but dreamlike.
The tables were full, upstairs and down, and Charlie had spent a frantic morning putting scones in the oven, arranging mini Danish pastries – pains au chocolat, almond croissants and pecan plaits – on her cake stands to go with cups of strong black coffee or frothy cappuccinos. Penzance was much bigger than the quaint seaside village of Porthgolow, but she hadn’t anticipated quite how much attention her bus would get in the town.
There were people taking photos and peering in through the cab window and she’d had to start a waiting list for customers who, when she’d told them the bus was full, said they were happy to sit in the sunshine until a table became available.
Charlie had decided that, in order to promote her bus, and the weekly food markets she had started in Porthgolow, she was going to take Gertie to every town in Cornwall. If the others were even half as busy as this, then it would be worth it. She just wished she’d brought Juliette with her so she wasn’t running the bus by herself, but her best friend was at home, working on a marketing project, and had offered to look after Charlie’s Yorkipoo, Marmite, so he wasn’t stuck on board. It was the right decision, but Charlie missed having her little terror with
