The Secret Christmas Bookshop (The Secret Bookshop #1)

Chapter One

I t wasn’t even dark when Sophie Stevens heard the first firework, but she knew, then, that it was time to move on. She stood behind her narrow counter in Hartley Country Apparel, twirling a silver biro between her fingers, and listened to the staccato, celebratory pops that sounded too close by.

‘Probably some lads from the school.’ Fiona didn’t look up from her crossword, her brows creased in concentration. She was wearing a tweed jacket, always a living mannequin for the high-end items they sold, her golden hair falling in layered waves that framed her face. ‘From now until Christmas they’ll be bubbling over with mischief. This is only the beginning.’

‘At least they’re having fun,’ Sophie said.

Fiona looked up. ‘Do you want to abandon your notebooks, go and set off some illicit bangers? Have you been hiding a reckless streak from me this entire time?’

‘I might have some hidden features you don’t know about.’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘You sound like a smartphone.’ Fiona paused, then added, ‘Everything’s OK, though? You’ve seemed restless these last few days.’

Sophie tried to hide her surprise. Firework night was her catalyst; the time when she always started to think about leaving. Except that if Fiona had noticed she was restless, her subconscious must have begun priming her for her short-notice disappearing act already. This time she was considering Cornwall, which was almost as far as she could get from where she was now: the sleepy, beautiful village of Mistingham, on the north Norfolk coast. She found that the further she went, the easier it was to start again.

‘I’m fine,’ she said to Fiona. ‘Just gearing up for Christmas, working out which materials I need to reorder, how many more notebooks I need to make to keep my shelves filled.’

‘They’re very beautiful shelves,’ Fiona said.

That was one thing Sophie would miss: the notebook concession she had in Fiona and her husband Ermin’s country clothes store. The shop drew in a lot of customers, and unique, luxury notebooks were just the kind of indulgent treat that tourists and visitors let themselves buy on holiday or days out. She always had a range of styles, sizes and price points: clothbound notebooks with ribbon ties; card-covered jotters with hand-painted designs and long-stitch binding; leather, casebound journals that took her the longest to make but were cooed over on a daily basis, the ultimate treasure.

She made them with plain pages for doodling, thick- and thin-lined for to-do lists and general scribbling, dotted for people who were serious about their bullet journals. Her corner of the shop was a cornucopia of colour and texture, offering the endless possibility of hundreds of blank pages.

And at Christmastime, her notebooks shimmied into the limelight. They were bought as presents, of course, because it was easy to be that little bit more lavish when you were buying for someone else. But December was also a month of list-making: lists of presents you needed to buy, who to send Christmas cards to, your shopping list for the Big Lunch. Recipes copied from books and amended to suit your guest list, mindful of any allergies or intolerances. There were secret lists of the gifts you wanted for yourself, or the Christmas wishes you were going to make, because – if you were like Sophie – you still believed in that festive magic at thirty-seven, as well as the power of a fresh, sparkling New Year, even if you would never admit it to anyone.

This was Sophie’s time to shine, and every year she leaned into it. She expanded her notebook range, honed her craft, surrounded the workstation in whatever rented flat she was living in with piles of new materials. She had fallen into a pattern of having a frenetic, successful festive season, then packing up all her things, what was left of her stock, and starting again somewhere else.

‘Everyone in Mistingham will have at least one new notebook by the end of December, if I have anything to do with it,’ she said. There was no reason to change that pattern this year, even if she had found a static home for her business here in Mistingham.

‘Why stop at one?’ Fiona said. ‘Why not aim for a trio of notebooks for every resident? You could put together little packs.’

‘I could .’ Sophie turned to her current to-do list, because she didn’t just advocate the power of notebooks, she was a true believer. She always had several on the go, all with different purposes, in the same way Fiona was always wearing at least one item of Hartley Country Apparel stock. ‘You’re like me,’ Fiona had said to her ten months ago, on the day Sophie had arrived in the village with her suitcase and her craft supplies. ‘You live it, rather than just selling it.’

Before Mistingham, Sophie had sold her creations at country fairs and festivals, craft and farmers’ markets, her online shop receiving a trickle of orders rather than a rush. She supplemented her income working in cafés or pubs, and she hadn’t expected to be able to afford shop space, but Fiona and Ermin were big on supporting local businesses, and when the owner of their last concession – a woman who made soy candles – moved away, Fiona had offered the cosy corner of Hartley Country Apparel to her.

Sophie had been able to expand her stock, working in the evenings at the sun-drenched workstation in her living room and, over the last ten months, she’d built up a busy, popular business with lots of tourist sales and repeat customers, a momentum she hadn’t experienced before.

Nothing had gone wrong so far – everything was going better than it had done in a long while – but Sophie couldn’t ignore the slow simmer of unease in her gut: the knowledge that if she did stay much longer, then things would turn sour, as they always did. Restricting herself to a year in each place meant it was easy to break what few ties she’d allowed herself to knot.

The ping of the shop door announced a new customer, and Sophie smiled as Dexter appeared. He owned Mistingham Bakery, and was a dark-haired hulk of a man. Today he was wearing a green corduroy jacket that looked too light for the weather, and a thick navy scarf.

Beyond the glass, a whisper-soft mist coated everything with a silver tinge, adding to the November chill.

‘Afternoon Fiona, Sophie,’ Dexter said, rubbing his hands together.

‘Have you come in for some gloves?’ Fiona turned pointedly to the stand next to her counter. Sophie knew, because it was hard not to stroke them, that the gloves were made of the softest leather and suede. Who wouldn’t want to slide their fingers into them? If she’d had a boyfriend to buy a present for – the thought was simultaneously laughable and tinged with sadness – then she would have bought him a pair in buttery, caramel-coloured suede.

‘One day,’ Dexter said, his smile warm and amused. ‘Except that my hands are always covered in flour, so I’d ruin them in a heartbeat. I came to see if you’d got any new scarves in. You had some really colourful ones last year.’

‘Is Lucy excited about Christmas?’ Fiona asked.

Lucy was Dexter’s nine-year-old daughter, and the two of them came as a pair. Dexter’s wife – Lucy’s mum – had died a few years ago, but Lucy was as high-spirited as her dad, who always had a smile for everyone.

‘We’re not allowed to be excited about Christmas yet,’ Dexter told them. ‘Lucy’s got it all worked out. We had to focus first on Halloween, then it’s Bonfire Night, then Christmas. If she knew I was getting in early with the present buying, I’d get a proper telling off.’

‘Why are you getting in so early?’ Sophie couldn’t help asking. She was fascinated by how different families worked because, growing up in so many foster homes, the range of traditions, rules and outlooks of her temporary parents had left her in a constant state of whiplash.

‘It’s pure panic.’ Dexter leaned an elbow on the varnished wood of Fiona’s counter, sounding as far from panicked as it was possible to get.

‘Panic?’

‘Don’t you get that?’ he asked. ‘There’s always a sense, round about now, that you should really start buying gifts, but then you get caught up in other day-to-day stuff, and suddenly it’s the twentieth of December and you’ve done none of it. I’m trying to respond to that original instinct before it disappears.’

‘I don’t usually …’ have anyone to buy for , Sophie could have finished. ‘I don’t get that panic.’

‘I do a big trip to Norwich the last weekend of November,’ Fiona said. ‘I have a list, and I get everything I need then – whatever I can’t get in Mistingham, of course.’

‘That’s far too organized,’ Dexter said. ‘Anyway. If I get Luce something now, then I’ll at least have one thing sorted for her. She’s angling for a Kindle, which I can get online – actually, I could do that today.’

Sophie grinned. ‘She’ll be furious with you if she finds out.’

‘Don’t think that gets you out of buying a scarf,’ Fiona scolded, and Dexter’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Anyway, what’s with this Kindle nonsense? When did a bit of plastic replace a gorgeous hardback with that perfect book smell and a cover you could hang on your wall?’

Sophie absent-mindedly stroked the turquoise leather notebook she had on the counter. The cover was soft, dyed leather, and she’d stitched it together with pink thread and added a pink elastic band closure. It was the perfect place to write thoughts and secrets.

‘She’s into this YA Romantasy stuff,’ Dexter said. ‘They’re huge books, so she says it would be easier to read them on a Kindle. But she’ll want the special editions as well, won’t she?’ He rubbed at his jacket cuff, suddenly looking anxious, and Sophie felt a pang of sympathy. She couldn’t imagine how hard it was for him to do all the parenting, make all those decisions, by himself.

‘I get it,’ she said gently. ‘Sometimes I type notes on my phone for convenience, but if I want a proper list, if I want the satisfaction of ticking off items I’ve completed, or it’s something I want to spend my time writing out, I use a notebook. You don’t have to commit to one or the other.’

‘You’re right, you don’t.’ Dexter’s smile flickered back into place. ‘Thanks, Sophie.’

‘If The Book Ends was still open, you’d be able to get all Lucy’s special editions there,’ Fiona said. ‘Christmas presents would be easier for everyone; Mistingham would be an entirely different village.’

‘It’s been closed for a couple of years now, hasn’t it?’ Sophie asked.

You couldn’t live in Mistingham and not know about the fabled bookshop, though Fiona’s suggestion that its loss had completely changed the village had to be pushing it. The shop still stood empty, a little way from Hartley Country Apparel on Perpendicular Street, the road that ran up from the seafront through the middle of the village. It was next to the much smaller, but also empty Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe. The Book Ends shop name was still visible in faded yellow script above, with the suggestion ‘So Buy Another One’ in a smaller font below.

‘Nearly three years now,’ Fiona said. ‘When Bernie Anderly’s mind deserted him, and he had to move into a care home. Such a shame – an entirely avoidable one.’ She shook her head. ‘Anyone want a cuppa?’

‘I’d love one,’ Sophie said.

Dexter glanced at his watch. ‘Me too. If I’m included in that?’

‘Of course you are,’ Fiona said. ‘The longer you stay, the more likely you are to buy something.’ She disappeared amongst the stands of cashmere and Fair Isle jumpers, moleskin trousers and suede gilets.

‘She’s still angry that Bernie’s son didn’t take over the bookshop,’ Dexter said. ‘As if she can move the people in this village about like armies on a Risk board.’

Sophie didn’t want to dwell on how Fiona might react when she told her she was leaving Mistingham. But she prized her independence more than anything, and Fiona would soon get over it: she’d find someone else to fill her concession corner, and Sophie would be a lost Risk counter that would soon be forgotten about.

‘That’s Harry Anderly, isn’t it?’ she asked, pushing her unease away. ‘Harry Anderly of Mistingham Manor.’ Spoken like that it sounded grand, much grander than the reality, which was that Bernie Anderly’s son had moved back to Mistingham from London only in the final months of his father’s life, that the manor was more horror film chic than Jane Austen adaptation, and that Harry was hardly ever seen in the village, and seemed to avoid human interaction at all costs.

Sophie had got to know May – who was Harry’s housemate and, most people thought, his girlfriend – a little bit during her time in the village, but she had always been tight-lipped about him, saying only that he was in a difficult position, that he was doggedly focused on repairing the manor rather than purposefully unfriendly. But to Sophie he felt like a fairy-tale villain, someone talked about but rarely seen. May could say all the generous things she liked about him, but he was never around to prove them for himself.

‘The least likely person to ever run a bookshop,’ Dexter said. ‘He’d send customers away with his scowls and monosyllabic answers. It’s bad enough that he’s making us move the Christmas festival, that we have to have the fireworks on the beach instead of the green, all because of that bloody oak tree.’ He shook his head. ‘The modern world is becoming so much more impersonal: Kindles rather than hardbacks; online shopping instead of places like this; watching the fireworks from miles away instead of getting together on the village green. Fiona’s holding onto a dream that has already died.’

‘And yet you leave genuine wicker baskets, full of bread and cakes and milk, on your customers’ doorsteps,’ Fiona pointed out, returning with three mismatched mugs full of steaming tea.

‘Yeah, well.’ Dexter shrugged. ‘That’s how I choose to run my business, and there’s still demand for it in Mistingham, so why should I stop?’

‘Why should I give up on my dream that someone will open up that bookshop again?’ Fiona parried. ‘And as for the supposed Oak Fest .’ She tutted, tapping her finger on the counter. ‘That green has been the site of village events for centuries. The moment Harry’s back, he stops everything. I know the land is part of the Mistingham Manor estate, but Bernie encouraged all of it, and that upstart’s vetoing it. He should go back to London – if he’s even wanted there.’

‘Come on,’ Dexter said gently. ‘I agree with you that not being able to use the green is frustrating, but we don’t really know Harry, or what he’s been through. At the very least his dad died and – well, losing someone close is never easy.’

Sophie gave him a gentle smile: Dexter knew that more than anyone.

Fiona put her mug down with a heavy thunk. ‘He should talk to us, instead of ripping the heart out of the village.’

Sophie hid her grin at her friend’s emotive language. She didn’t add that she would have loved the bookshop to be open, that she would have spent a good chunk of her profits on dark thrillers and sparkling romances that held endless wonder in their pages; historical novels that whisked her away to another time.

Books and notebooks: one with the pages already full of magic; the other waiting for you to create some of your own. She couldn’t do without either, and she was already looking forward to getting back to Beach Read by Emily Henry that evening. And then, maybe she’d start a Christmas book, to get her in the festive spirit.

‘Have you got time to show me these scarves, then?’ Dexter asked, when he’d drained his tea.

‘Of course,’ Fiona said smugly. ‘This way.’

Once they were hidden behind a rail of expensive jeans, their voices muffled, Sophie opened her notebook to the middle pages and wrote ‘Cornwall 2025’ at the top. She pushed her ponytail, long and reddish-brown, over her shoulder, and waited for the familiar buzz of energy she usually got when she set out the next chapter in her story, crafted a new life plan. This time, it was distinctly muted. She doodled a flower-shaped bullet point, waited for inspiration to strike, and was distracted by a clatter from outside.

She saw through the window that their A-board, advertising chunky winter knits and luxury leather journals, had fallen over in the wind. She slipped out from behind her counter, pushed open the door and headed for the sign, which was lying on its side on the pavement. Her shoulder connected with something and she jolted back, just as someone said ‘Jesus! What the …?’

Sophie looked to her right, where a man was staring down at his grey jacket, the unhelpful angle of his takeaway coffee cup, and a dark stain spreading across the fabric. With his gaze elsewhere, Sophie had time to examine him, and felt a spark of recognition. Thick, mid-brown hair that had been tousled by the wind; square jaw brushed with stubble; long, straight nose; thick brows.

Then he looked up, and she added to her cataloguing: eyes that were neither dark nor pale, but that bore into her with an intensity she wasn’t used to. This, she realized, was Harry Anderly – as if talking about him had conjured him here, perhaps to admonish them all.

‘I didn’t see you,’ Sophie said.

‘Clearly.’ His voice was tight.

‘I’m sorry,’ she went on, ‘but you might have noticed me, too. You were walking towards me: I was right in front of you.’

‘I was distracted.’ He glanced away from her, towards the shop window, as if that had been the cause.

‘Right,’ she said, when he didn’t add anything else. She gestured to his jacket. ‘If it’s black coffee, it won’t leave a mark.’

He looked back at her and their gazes held. She saw that his eyes were hazel, greens and browns mingling together.

‘Good to know,’ he said after a beat, then cleared his throat.

The silence stretched, and Sophie decided that Dexter’s sympathy for him was misplaced. She reached out towards the A-board, but before she could pick it up Harry grabbed hold of it. He slammed it on the ground with almost enough force to crack the paving stones and then, without even glancing at her, strode off up Perpendicular Street.

Sophie stared at him. ‘I was right in front of you,’ she said again, this time to nobody. It was a good job the fireworks were being let off from the beach rather than his land. She couldn’t imagine how bad things would get for everyone if he gave into the village’s requests and something went wrong. She tapped the top of the A-board, checking Harry had put it back on even ground, then went inside.

Fiona and Dexter were still by the accessories, so she returned to her notebook and her plans for next year. There was a part of her that knew it made no sense, that questioned why, when things were going well, she felt the need to start again. But the memories of Bristol were still stubbornly fresh in her mind. She’d been there for three years, let herself get complacent with a job she loved, a man she believed was in it for the long haul, and it had all fallen apart.

She was happiest when she wasn’t tied down, felt lighter when there was nothing holding her to a place or a person. Everyone was different, and this was how she chose to live her life: there was nothing wrong with it.

Fiona and Dexter were laughing somewhere behind her, and she could see people in heavy coats and thick hats walking past outside, cheeks pink from a bracing walk along the seafront. Sophie decided that she would throw everything into the next two months, make sure her Christmas was as profitable as possible, so she’d have everything she needed to start afresh at the beginning of next year. The buzz of energy and excitement would come as soon as she had something concrete written down, as soon as she firmed up some of her ideas. She was sure of it.