Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [0]
Alphabet Weekends
Praise for Elizabeth Noble:
‘I defy you not to cry at least once’ Sun
‘This powerful tale packs an emotional punch’ Closer
‘An emotional rollercoaster’ Now
‘A journey through emotionally charged mother-daughter territory… it may kick-start the practice of letter-writing again’ Good Housekeeping
‘Her stories strike a genuine chord… an irresistible comfort read’ Glamour
‘Enchantingly clever. I cried, I laughed, I couldn’t put it down and I altogether loved (every moment of) it’ Penny Vincenzi
‘A compelling read, with characters you’ll really take to your heart’ Heat
‘Witty, affectionate and unashamedly tear-jerking look at female bonding’ Red
‘I adored it and want my daughters to read it’ Eve
‘It’s only Noble’s second novel, but she’s already an old pro. So fluid, the pages turn themselves’ Daily Mirror
‘Perfect stuff to chew on over a long night in’ Daily Mail
‘A witty, heart-warming read’ Good Book Guide
Alphabet Weekends
ELIZABETH NOBLE
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by Hodder & Stoughton,
a division of Hodder Headline 2005
Published in Penguin Books 2010
Copyright © Elizabeth Noble, 2005
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-194171-4
Contents
Prologue: New Year’s Eve
January A for Abseiling
B for Ballet
C for Canoeing
D for Do-it-yourself
February E for Equine
F for Family Get-together
G for Gone With the Wind
H for Hotel
March
I for IKEA
J for Job Swap –
K for Kids
L for Luvvies
April
M for Meeting New People
N for Nemesis
O for Opera
P for Paris
May Q for Queen Tribute Band
R for Rock-climbing
S for Simon
T for Tattoo
U for Urgh
June
V for Vegas
W for Wedding
X is for X Marks the Spot
Y for Your Place or Mine
July
Z for Capo Zafferano, Palermo, Sicily
Acknowledgements
From the A of Abseiling to the V of Vegas
for who else but my friends
Nicola, Suzanne, Nicky, Fiona, Maura, Jenny and Kathryn,
and for Imogen and Louella Noble,
and their mum and dad, Lianne and James.
Prologue: New Year’s Eve
Natalie and Tom
New Year’s Eve. It was one of those things, wasn’t it? You only looked good in a bikini for one summer (after breasts, before tummy), you only ever had one first kiss (per guy, obviously), and everyone, well at least everyone Natalie knew, had honestly truly only ever had one really, really brilliant New Year’s Eve. Which, funnily enough, usually coincided roughly with the looking-good-in-a-bikini and the first-kiss year. All the years after that suffered by comparison. The summers-were-hotter-when-we-were-young