It’s a Wonderful Life: The Christmas bestseller is back with an unforgettable holiday romance. Julia Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ Littlest Angel synopsis

      By Beth King

      This is the story of a little angel, whose job it is to find the baby Jesus. She sets out with a band of angels and gets lost. All she knows is a special baby is being born in Bethlehem, and she has to follow a magic star which has risen in the East in order to get to him.

      On her journey she meets a young shepherd boy, a page, a camel, a donkey and finally some sheep, who lead her to where the baby Jesus is. She is the first angel there and sings him the first ever carol.

       Beth, I just love this story. And the spreads you’ve worked up are really wonderful. I know we’ll get a lot of interest in this one, I’m only sorry that I won’t be able to take you all the way through, but as you know, my own little arrival is about to put in an entrance. It’s been great working with you, and I’m sure you’ll be in good hands with Vanessa.

       I’m wishing you great success for your little angel. You deserve it so much.

       Much love

       Karen x

      It’s great that Karen likes my new idea, not so great that she’s gone on maternity leave during the biggest crisis of my career. Just as I pick up another version of the spread, and decide it’s as rubbish as the rest, I’m sidelined by my mother ringing.

      ‘So, what are your plans for Christmas?’

      Typical Mum, straight to the point as usual.

      I swear she asks this question earlier and earlier every year. Just in case Daniel and I have made devious plans to escape the Holroyd Family Christmas and booked a week away somewhere. As if we would. As if we could.

      ‘Mum, it’s August!’ I protest. I scrumple up the sketch and throw it on the floor, where it joins all the other discarded pieces of paper. I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me, I don’t normally find it this hard to get my ideas down.

      ‘And soon it will be September and you’ll be too busy to talk to me.’ My mum does such a good line in passive aggression. I not only speak to her every other day, I’m usually round her house once a week. I am after all the dutiful one of the family. This is my job, while my erstwhile brother, Ged, takes gap years aged thirty-six and at thirty-eight my sister Lou lurches from one disastrous love affair to another. I’m the one who did things right: had a family, moved close to Mum and Dad.

      They still live in the cosy cottage where I grew up in the small Surrey town of Abinger Lea. Our house is about a mile away from them. Initially we stayed nearer to London, in the house Daniel’s mum left him, but then when the children came along I needed some help and it seemed like a no-brainer to come here. We like being close to the countryside while having good train links with London, which has been useful for my work. Daniel used to work in an inner-London comprehensive, but he’s just about to start a job in the slightly larger town of Wottonleigh, which is only three miles away. That’s going to make life a lot easier.

      It’s not as though I don’t like being near my parents, it’s just that sometimes I wish I wasn’t the ‘good’ sibling. It’s a feeling I’ve had more often than not lately. Mum and Dad are perfectly capable, but I seem to always be doing them little favours, like dropping Mum off into Wottonleigh when Dad’s busy playing golf, or going to the art classes I finally persuaded him to take (he’s always had a creative side, but he keeps it under wraps). And I seem to be on constant call to help them sort out their computer problems. I feel rubbish for being so resentful, particularly as they were always so great about babysitting when the kids were small, but sometimes I feel stifled by the fact that I’ve never quite managed to move away from my family.

      Belatedly I realise Mum is still in full flow.

      ‘Anyway, as I always like to say, fail to prepare—’

      ‘Prepare to fail. I know, Mum,’ I say. ‘Anyway, we’ll do exactly what we do every year and come to you. I don’t know why you feel you have to ask.’

      I’ve occasionally tried to change the ‘Christmas Plan’ by suggesting that I take the slack for Mum and have them all over here, as it’s not as though we don’t have the room. But she always knocks me back, and I’ve given up trying, even though the kids get more and more stroppy about it each year. Sam is going to be eighteen next year and Megan’s fifteen. They’re not little kids any more, and I think Mum forgets that sometimes, and doesn’t quite get that they have other things going on in their lives, particularly around Christmas time. The trouble is, Mum loves doing Christmas, so even though I have a family of my own, I don’t get a look in. The only time I was allowed remotely near the turkey was the year Mum had had a hysterectomy, and even then she sat directing operations from the lounge. Nightmare.

      ‘I just wanted to check, dear,’ Mum says, ‘in case you might have had other plans.’

      I refrain from snorting. I know far, far better than to make other plans.

      ‘You’ve no need to worry, Mum, we’ll be there,’ I say, and put the phone down.

      ‘Who was that?’ Daniel wanders in from the garden, where he’s been working hard cutting the grass. Sweat is pouring off his brow, and he’s taken his T-shirt off. I take a minute to enjoy the view. At forty-two my husband bears a distinct resemblance to Adrian Lester, and is still pretty trim and sexy for his age. Sure we argue like all couples do, and in term time when he’s busy I sometimes wish we saw more of him. The great thing though is that despite the ups and downs of married life, I still fancy the pants off him, and that’s dead lucky at my age. I know so many women who moan constantly about their husbands. While we have our disagreements, Daniel and I still get on pretty well, and at this particular moment I am rather wishing we were alone in the house. Shame the kids are upstairs.

      ‘Mum,’ I say, in answer to his question. ‘I’d put your shirt back on before the kids see you, they’ll be horrified.’

      Daniel looks upwards to their bedrooms.

      ‘I doubt they’re going to be downstairs in a hurry,’ is his wry response, and I laugh. It’s the summer holidays. They’re teenagers, it would probably take a bomb to get them up before lunchtime. He comes and gives me a kiss. I feel a little lurch of desire, and regret even more that the kids haven’t gone out for the day.

      ‘Ugh, you’re all sweaty,’ I say jokingly, pushing him away.

      ‘Just the way you like me,’ he teases. ‘What did your mum want?’

      I roll my eyes. ‘To ask about Christmas. Honestly, it’s only August.’

      ‘Oh, come on, you love it,’ says Daniel, ‘the Holroyd Family Christmas is legendary. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t go to your mum and dad’s.’

      This is true. There was the year Dad accidentally set fire to his beard when he dressed up as Santa, and the year that Mum cooked the turkey with the giblets in by mistake, not to mention the year when Lou and Ged had a massive row and Lou ended up in floods of tears in the kitchen with me and Mum comforting her. Oh wait. That happens nearly every year. Perhaps Daniel is right. I suppose it wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t go.

      The Christmas Day routine in our family never varies. Mum and Dad come back from church at 10.30 – some years if I’ve СКАЧАТЬ