"Christmas is the season the Gingerbread Café in Ashford, Connecticut was made for…but owner Lily couldn’t be feeling less merry if she tried. She’s spent another year dreaming of being whisked away on a sleigh-ride for two, but she’s facing festive season alone – again. And, just to give her another reason to feel anything other than candy-cane perky, a new shop across the road has opened… Not only is it selling baked goods, but the owner, with his seriously charming smile, has every girl in town swooning.
But Lily isn’t about to let her business crumble — the Gingerbread Café is the heart of the community, and she’s going to fight for it! This could be the Christmas that maybe, just maybe, all her dreams – even the someone-to-decorate-the-Christmas-tree-with ones – really do come true!"
Christmas at the Gingerbread Café Free eBook!
To celebrate the release of the Gingerbread Café series being published in paperback on Friday the 22nd of October, Carina UK have made the first eBook in the series free on all eBook retailers in the UK for a limited time!
Please grab a festive eBook for FREE!
Kobo http://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/christmas-at-the-gingerbread-caf�-once-in-a-lifetime-the-gingerbread-cafe-book-1-/9781472073785
Or a paperback version here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gingerbread-Cafe-Christmas-Chocolate-Wedding/dp/0263918033/ref=sr_1_7_twi_pap_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444902306&sr=8-7&keywords=rebecca+raisin
I loved this book SO MUCH - as an actual Christmas freak, who starts buying christmas sandwiches in the supermarket in October, this was a perfect read for me. See below for a cheeky little extract - and if you love Christmas, and all that goes with it, you won't be disappointed.
CHAPTER ONE
Amazing
Grace blares out from the speakers above me, and I cry, not
delicate, pretty tears, but great big heaves that will puff up my eyes, like a
blowfish. That song touches me, always has, always will. With one hand jammed
well and truly up the turkey’s behind I sing those mellifluous words as if I’m
preaching to a choir. Careful, so my tears don’t swamp the damn bird, I grab
another handful of aromatic stuffing. My secret recipe: a mix of pork sausage,
pecans, cranberries and crumbled corn bread. Punchy flavors that will seep into
the flesh and make your heart sing. The song reaches its crescendo, and my
tears turn into a fully-fledged blubber-fest. The doorbell jangles and I
realize I can’t wipe my face with my messy hands. Frantic, I try and compose
myself as best I can.
“Jesus
Mother o’ Mary, ain’t no customers comin’ in here with this kinda carry-on!
It’s been two years since that damn fool left you. When you gonna move on, my
sweet cherry blossom?”
CeeCee. My
only employee at the Gingerbread Café, a big, round, southern black woman, who
tells it like it is. Older than me by a couple of decades, more like a second
mother than anything. Bless her heart.
“Oh, yeah?”
I retort. “How are you expecting me to move on? I still love the man.”
“He ain’t no
man. A man wouldn’t never cheat on his wife. He’s a boy, playing at being a
man.”
“You’re
right there.” Still, it’s been two lonely years, and I ache for him. There’s no
accounting for what the heart feels. I’m heading towards the pointy end of my
twenties. By now, I should be raising babies like all the other girls in town,
not baking gingerbread families in lieu of the real thing.
I’m
distracted from my heartbreak by CeeCee cackling like a witch. She puts her
hands on her hips, which are hidden by the dense parka she wears, and doubles
over. While she’s hooting and hollering, I stare, unsure of what’s so damn
amusing. “Are you finished?” I ask, arching my eyebrows.
This starts
her off again, and she’s leg slapping, cawing, the whole shebang.
“It’s just…”
She looks at me, and wipes her weeping eyes. “You look a sight. Your hand
shoved so far up the rear of that turkey, like you looking for the meaning of
life, your boohooing, this sad old music. Golly.”
“This is
your music, CeeCee. Your gospel CD.”
She colors.
“I knew that. It’s truly beautiful, beautiful, it is.”
“Thought you
might say that.” I grin back. CeeCee’s church is the most important thing in
her life, aside from her family, and me.
“Where we up
to?” she says, taking off her parka, which is dusted white from snow. Carefully,
she shakes the flakes into the sink before hanging her jacket on the coat rack
by the fire.
“I’m
stuffing these birds, and hoping to God someone’s going to buy them. Where’s
the rush? Two and a bit weeks before Christmas we’re usually run off our feet.”
CeeCee wraps
an apron around her plump frame. “It’ll happen, Lil. Maybe everyone’s just
starting a little later this year, is all.” She shrugs, and goes to the sink to
wash her hands.
“I don’t
remember it ever being this quiet. No catering booked at all over the holidays,
aside from the few Christmas parties we’ve already done. Don’t you think that’s
strange?”
“So, we push
the café more, maybe write up the chalkboard with the fact you’re selling
turkeys already stuffed.” This provokes another gale of laughter.
“This is
going to be you in a minute—” I indicate to the bird “—so I don’t see what’s so
darn amusing.”
“Give me
that bowl, then.”
We put the
stuffing mix between us and hum along to Christmas music while we work. We
decorated the café almost a month ago now. Winter has set in. The grey skies
are a backdrop for our flashing Christmas lights that adorn the windows.
Outside, snow drifts down coating the window panes and it’s so cozy I want to
snuggle by the fire and watch the world go by. Glimmering red and green baubles
hang from the ceiling, and spin like disco balls each time a customer blows in.
A real tree holds up the corner; the smell from the needles, earth and pine,
seeps out beneath the shiny decorations.
In pride of
place, sitting squarely in the bay window, is our gingerbread house. It’s four
feet high, with red and white candy-cane pillars holding up the thatched roof.
There’s a wide chimney, decorated with green and red jelly beans, ready for
Santa to climb down. And the white chocolate front door has a wreath made from
spun sugar. In the garden, marshmallow snowmen gaze cheerfully out from under
their hats. If you look inside the star-shaped window, you can see a
gingerbread family sitting beside a Christmas tree. The local children come in
droves to ogle it, and CeeCee is always quick to invite them in for a cup of
cocoa, out of the cold.
I opened up
the Gingerbread Café a few years back, but the town of Ashford is only a blip
on the map of Connecticut, so I run a catering business to make ends meet. We
cater for any party, large or small, and open the café during the week to sell
freshly made cakes, pies, and whatever CeeCee’s got a hankering for. But we
specialize in anything ginger. Gingerbread men, cookies, beverages, you name
it, we’ve made it. You can’t get any more comforting than a concoction of
golden syrup, butter, and ginger baking in the oven in the shape of little bobble-headed
people. The smell alone will transport you back to childhood.
CeeCee’s the
best pie maker I’ve ever known. They sell out as quickly as we can make them.
But pies alone won’t keep me afloat.
“So, you
hear anything about that fine-looking thing, from over the road?” CeeCee asks.
“What fine
thing?”
She rolls
her eyes dramatically. “Damon, his name is. The one opening up the new shop,
remember? You know who I mean. We went over there to peek just the other day.”
“I haven’t
heard boo about him. And who cares, anyhow?”
“You sure as
hell wouldn’t be bent over dead poultry, leaking from those big blue eyes of yours,
if he was snuggled in your bed at night.”
I gasp and
pretend to be outraged. “CeeCee! Maybe you could keep him warm—you ever think
of that?”
“Oh, my. If
I was your age, I’d be over there lickety-split. But I ain’t and he might be
just the distraction you need.”
“Pfft. The
only distraction I need is for that cash register to start opening and closing
on account of it filling with cold hard cash.”
“You could
fix up those blond curls of yours, maybe paint your nails. You ain’t got time
to dilly-dally. Once the girls in town catch on, he’s gonna be snapped right
up,” says CeeCee, clicking her fingers.
“They can
have him. I still love Joel.”
CeeCee
shakes her head and mumbles to herself. “That’s about the dumbest thing I ever
heard. You know he’s moved on.”
I certainly
do. There’s no one in this small town of ours that doesn’t know. He sure as
hell made a mockery of me. Childhood sweethearts, until twenty-three months,
four days and, oh, five hours ago. He’s made a mistake, and he’ll come back, I
just know it. Money’s what caused it, or lack thereof. He’s gone, hightailed it
out of town with some redheaded bimbo originally from Kentucky. She’s got more
money than Donald Trump, and that’s why if you ask me. We lost our house after
his car yard went belly up, and I nearly lost my business.
“Lookie
here,” CeeCee says. “I think we’re about to get our first customer.”
The doorbell
jangles, and in comes Walt, who sells furniture across the way.
“Morning,
ladies.” He takes off his almost-threadbare earmuff hat. I’ve never seen Walt
without the damn thing, but he won’t hear a word about it. It’s his lucky hat,
he says. Folks round here have all sorts of quirks like that.
“Hey, Walt,”
I say. “Sure is snowing out there.”
“That it is.
Mulled-wine weather if you ask me.”
CeeCee
washes her hands, and dries them on her apron. “We don’t have none of that, but
I can fix you a steaming mug of gingerbread coffee, Walt. Surely will warm
those hands o’ yours. How’d you like that?”
“Sounds
mighty nice,” he says, edging closer to the fire. The logs crackle and spit,
casting an orange glow over Walt’s ruddy face.
