Welcome back everyone, today we have an excerpt from Jaimie Admans awesome new book, The Chateau of Happily Ever Afters. This post is part of Jenny's book tour, don't forget to check out the other posts on this tour.
About The Book:
Where dreams come true…?
Wendy Clayton stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago. Instead, she has a ‘nice’ life. Nice job. Nice flat. Absolutely no men. Until her life is turned upside-down when her elderly neighbour, Eulalie, passes away and leaves her the Château of Happily Ever Afters!
But there’s a catch: she must share the sprawling French castle with Eulalie’s long-lost nephew, Julian. And no matter how gorgeous he is, or how easily she finds herself falling head over heels, Wendy needs to find a way to get rid of him…
Because surely happily ever afters don’t happen in real life?
Escape to beautiful France this summer with this uplifting romantic comedy. Perfect for fans of Kat French, Caroline Roberts, and Holly Martin.
Excerpt from the Book
Excerpt from the Book
Have you remembered to add toilet roll to your shop this week?
Bog roll. That’s as exciting as my life gets. I nod at my phone and slip it back into my bag, trying to pretend it was an important business email and not a weekly reminder from my online shop. I want the two men in the room with me to think I’m such a sophisticated person that I can’t even go for one meeting without someone needing me for something vital.
I’m sitting in a solicitor’s office in central London, two places I try to avoid at all costs, and all I’ve seen on my way here are sophisticated, together-looking people, unlike me who couldn’t find a shirt smart enough so used a striped work shirt and put a cardigan over it so no one would notice the supermarket logo. It’s August and twenty-eight degrees outside. It’s way too hot for a cardi, this solicitor has clearly never heard of air conditioning, and the sweat prickling my forehead has started melting my make-up.
Globules of foundation dripping off my eyebrows is doing nothing to make these men think I’m sophisticated, or that I understand a word that’s been said since I entered this room. Nothing makes sense and I can’t grasp everything the solicitor is trying to tell me. I risk a glance at the bloke next to me, who meets my eyes and gives me a gleaming smile. I huff and look away, folding my arms as the solicitor talks, and he goes back to nodding along calmly like being told you’ve inherited a French castle is an everyday occurrence.
‘As I was saying,’ the solicitor says, pushing back thinning grey hair that he looks much too young to have. ‘My client, Mrs Beauchene, left a will. It was written, signed, and witnessed within the last year of her life, and she was of sound mind. In it, she bequeaths Le Château de Châtaignier to you, Miss Clayton. However, we have encountered a snag.’
I look at the bloke to my left again. I don’t know what’s going on but it seems like he is the admittedly very handsome snag.
None of this can be true. Eulalie didn’t have a château. She was ninety-six years old and lived on the seventh floor of a crappy block of flats in outer London that should’ve been demolished years ago. In the winter, her minuscule pension often left her with a choice between buying food and putting the heating on. The only thing she had to bequeath to anybody would’ve been a sticky boiled sweet from the bottom of her handbag.
‘As Mrs Beauchene held dual citizenship, French law applies to her will, and as such she foregoes the right to disinherit any direct descendant. Therefore Mr McBeath…’ He gestures towards the gorgeous bloke on my left. ‘…Is entitled to an equal share of the estate.’
Why don’t solicitors speak English? Is that what they teach them at solicitor school? To completely lose the ability to communicate with other humans? I take a deep breath and smooth my trousers across my legs. This is surely a mistake or some kind of scam. I expect his next line will be something about a Nigerian prince wanting to give me a million pounds, and all I have to do is give him my bank details and pin number.
Jaimie is a 32-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, watching horror movies, and drinking tea, although she’s seriously considering marrying her coffee machine. She loves autumn and winter, and singing songs from musicals despite the fact she’s got the voice of a dying hyena. She hates spiders, hot weather, and cheese & onion crisps. She spends far too much time on Twitter and owns too many pairs of boots.
She will never have time to read all the books she wants to read.
She is the author of chick-lit romantic comedies The Chateau of Happily Ever Afters and Kismetology, and she has also written young-adult romantic comedies Afterlife Academy, Not Pretty Enough, and North Pole Reform School.
Author links:
The Chateau of Happily Ever Afters:
Will also be available from all other ebook retailers.
Giveaway:
French-themed stationery goodie bag.
1 x Paperchase Paris notebook and pen
1 x The Chateau of Happily Ever Afters notebook
1 x little Eiffel Tower model
1 x Eiffel Tower bookmark
1 x The Chateau of Happily Ever Afters magnet
1 x Signed postcard
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Have you read this book? It's the perfect summer read.
HAYLEY
*This e-book was gifted to me for an honest review as part of Jenny's book tour.
Thanks for hosting this and being part of the tour, Hayley!
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