by Karen Swan
‘So Toronto, huh?’
He heard her breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Yeah.’
‘I guess that’s not so far from Quebec. Better than Banff anyway, over.’
‘What’s in Quebec?’ Puzzlement speckled her voice.
He took a breath. It had been a gamble on his part, not knowing whether this was the right thing to do or, more to the point, what she’d want him to do. ‘It’s the headquarters for the Canadian Space Agency. I’ve landed a secondment there. I’m starting next month.’
There was a time delay, static crackling between them and making the needle on his dial flicker wildly. ‘You’re going to be working in Quebec?’ she repeated in astonishment.
‘That’s right. About an hour and a half plane ride away.’
There was another silence.
‘Well, I guess we should be grateful that it’s an improvement on being on the wrong side of the atmosphere.’
He laughed, relief flooding his bones. ‘It is. We’re getting better.’
They were both silent for a moment at his use of ‘we’. Them. Him and her.
‘I guess this means you’ll be able to see my new apartment then,’ she said and he could tell from her voice that she was smiling.
‘And you mine, over.’
‘Hey, what time is it over there anyway?’
‘Uh . . .’ he checked his watch. ‘Quarter to eight in the morning.’
‘So then it’s Christmas Day already for you.’
‘It is.’
‘Happy Christmas, Commander Solberg.’
He smiled. ‘Happy Christmas to you too, Meg Saunders . . . I got you a present.’
She gasped. ‘You did?’
‘Well, if you count a joke as a gift.’
‘Oh God, I should’ve known,’ she groaned and he heard her laugh, all the way across the world. ‘Go on then. Do your worst.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Did you hear the one about the astronaut who spent six years training to go into space?’
‘Go on.’
‘He met a girl six weeks in and spent the rest of his time trying to get back down to her again.’
There was a small silence. And then, from the darkness, ‘Yes,’ she whispered, her smile carrying over in the dark. ‘I heard about him.’
Epilogue
Wednesday 27 December 2017
The wheels of her suitcase bumped along the ground, the taxi driver passing her with a wave as he drove off and she steeled her nerve, knowing it was too late to back out now. In spite of the heavy sky that had been disgorging snow ever since she touched down, the roads had been cleared to reveal glistening cobbles and she reread the address she’d written on her inner wrist as she’d whiled the time away at the airport.
The town itself was big – the third largest in Norway, Jonas had told her – but his family’s house was in the Old Town and it was pretty close to how she’d imagined it, although the distinctive red roofs were currently whited-out beneath deep drifts and the little lanes so narrow that the taxi driver wasn’t even close to being able to get his car down them, and had had to drop her several streets away. Thick garlands of fir were strung up between the houses, lights twinkled at every window and door, and the giant Christmas tree in the town square was so densely latticed with fairy lights, it looked to have been trussed by silk spiders.
The streets were quiet – everyone still indoors with their families – and as she listened to the rumble of her little wheels on the stone setts, she became acutely aware of her status here as an unexpected traveller. Below a pale moon that seemed ten times the size of the one she knew, she passed from the pools of one old-fashioned street light to the next, raising her head and smiling as a couple of children, no more than ten, ran past dragging a sledge behind them with a small terrier yapping excitedly as it raced to keep up.
She felt another pang of longing for Badger. He was settled with Dolores, she knew that, and he was used to Meg leaving him with her, but that hadn’t made Meg feel any better when the time had come to leave. It turned out he was her home too.
She saw the street name she had been looking for and stopped. The lane was one of the narrowest yet, the white weatherboarded houses still looking crisp against the snow which, apart from the indents of footprints, lay deep and untouched, for the snow-clearing machines and gritters would be too big to get down there.
Pulling up her sleeve with her teeth to expose the address on her inner wrist, she checked the house number on her skin against those on the doors, and stepped into the deeper snow, having to lift her bag clear. It was awkward but her mind wasn’t on that as she counted down the numbers. She was trying to remember what she’d rehearsed on the plane over – in fact, both planes. It had taken two flights and a six-hour stopover at Heathrow to get here, so she’d had plenty of time to think about it. But now that she was here, everything had gone blank.
She dropped the bag into the snow, panting slightly, as she stared at his door. One knock and this new life she’d come in search of would begin. She took a deep breath and raised her hand, but the sound of voices made her turn and she saw three silhouetted figures coming down the street, one taller than the others.
He stopped walking as he saw her standing there and she swallowed, wanting to laugh and cry all at once. And then he ran, dropping something off his shoulder into the snow, powder being kicked up by his feet as he closed the distance between them: space, a continent, this lane . . . There was nothing separating them any more and he swung her around, lifting her easily as he laughed. ‘I can’t believe you’re here! You came all this way to see me?’
‘I wanted to surprise you.’ She grinned, looking down into his ice-clear eyes.
‘You have!’ He lowered her to the ground again, his gaze softening as he took in the sight of her properly. ‘You always do.’
The two boys he’d been walking with reached them now, but stayed standing back slightly as though shy. Jonas turned to them, drawing them in closer with a scoop of his arm. ‘Hey, this is Meg I was telling you about.’
Meg smiled, holding up one gloved hand in a timid wave. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ they said in accented voices, blinking back at her in unison like a pair of deer. They had ice skates strung over their shoulders, the older one carrying two pairs, and she looked back at Jonas, remembering the day they’d skated on Lake Louise, the day they’d got together.
Jonas reached for her hand and took it in his, squeezing it. ‘These are my youngest brothers Matias and Kasper. Matias is fifteen and Kasper is eleven.’
‘Oh, my goodness, you’re both so tall!’ she laughed in astonishment.
The boys looked as though they didn’t know what to say to that, and both nodded politely; then a moment later, pushing open the door that was clearly on the latch, they ran into the house together, calling out something to ‘Mamma’ and ‘Pappa’ that made Jonas laugh. ‘Well, your secret’s out. Brace yourself for the welcoming party.’ He pulled her in closer to him, pushing her hair back from her face. ‘God, I missed you,’ he murmured, clasping her face with his hands and kissing her.
‘I missed you,’ she smiled, entwining her arms behind his neck and kissing him back. ‘I couldn’t wait till Quebec.’
‘Que—? Wait, I thought I was visiting you first?’
‘You are.’
He frowned. ‘But—’
She smiled. ‘Well,’ she sighed, stretching the word out teasingly. ‘I figure Quebec is as good a base as Toronto. I haven’t signed an apartment lease in Toronto yet and I can operate my business from anywhere.’
His mouth parted as he realized what she was telling him, relief and desire and so many other emotions swimming through his eyes. ‘Ronnie will hate me for taking you away from her.’
‘Ronnie loves you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I do.’
He blinked, trailing the back of his hand down her cheek. ‘Copy that. I love you too, Dog Dog Ellie.’
Acknowledgements
People often ask me how I think up the ideas for my books and my answer is a dull one – I read a lot and keep my ear to the ground in conversations – but the truth is I never know where the idea for the next book is going to come from; equally, once it’s written, it can be hard to think back and dissemble the events and remember how it spun into shape from nothing. But the genesis of this particular book will always stay with me. It was a Saturday morning and I was prepping food for a dinner party that night, with Radio 4 on in the background. An astronaut called Dr Helen Sharman was being interviewed ahead of Major Tim Peake’s launch into space the following week (in fact, Sharman was the first Briton to go into space, back in 1991; but that’s another story) and Sharman mentioned in passing that she had been granted a ham radio license just for the duration of her expedition to the Mir Space Station; she went on to say that some astronauts had been known to strike up friendships with the ham radio enthusiasts who contacted them regularly. Well . . . if ever there was a ‘Eureka’ moment! Could there be a more perfect way to have two characters meet? My mind went into overdrive and within the hour I had sketched out a plot. I wasn’t sure if I was completely mad to try to write a love story when one of the characters wasn’t even on the planet, but I was excited about the challenge from the offset and knew I had to give it my best shot.
I also didn’t know, when I sat in the audience of the Banff Mountain Film Festival Tour, that the films I saw that night would become another well of inspiration for this story. Some of the films prompted scenes for the characters, such as The Ridge by Danny MacAskill, which inspired the mountain biking scene with Tuck in the woods, Afterglow, which is used as the backdrop film in the Toronto Snow Show scene, and the film made by Tuck of Mitch and Badger is directly based on the stunning short Sun Dog by The Shadow Campaign. You can find them all on YouTube and I really highly recommend checking them out – I have watched them numerous times since the festival; they are achingly beautiful and always leave me damp-eyed (and wishing I could ski better).
You’ll be happy to hear that Badger, the dog, is real and living the good life in Cornwall with my great friends Sally, Ian, Mhairi and Muirne. His eyebrows really are a thing to behold.
My brother Andrew (whose eyebrows are also notable) was fantastic at giving me local colour – he worked in Banff as a ski lift operator during his gap year – and was particularly helpful with details of what Banff Avenue looks like after midnight when you’re rolling out of a bar: it’s all true about the elks wandering down the middle of the street in the moonlight too.
I’d like to thank Dan Wagstaff and all the team at PGC for taking this book to their hearts and doing such a fantastic job of getting it out to my Canadian readers. I hope my love for your beautiful country sings from the pages.
For everyone at Pan Macmillan: this is our eleventh book together and I am so proud of everything we’ve achieved. At the time of writing this, you are Publishers of the Year and you deserve to be: not only do you have the best staff – fresh, innovative, professional – but your support, enthusiasm and nurturing of emerging talent separates you from the pack. It’s little wonder you are rewarded not just with chart-topping titles but loyalty too. My hearty thanks to Jeremy Trevathan, Wayne Brookes, James Annal, Jodie Mullish, Katie James, Anna Bond, Daniel Jenkins, Claire Gatzen, Phoebe Taylor; and to my copy-editor Mary Chamberlain and proofreader Camilla Rockwood, thank you – you should probably be paid danger money when it comes to untangling my manuscripts!
To my agent Amanda Preston and my editor Caroline Hogg, I’d like to thank you both for not freaking out when I first mentioned the words ‘astronaut’ and ‘space’ and ‘ISS’. That you remained calm and trusted me to take those elements and turn them into a Karen Swan book was hugely appreciated. I think we pulled it off, don’t you?
Finally, to my lovely big, noisy, slightly mad family –if we’re going to name names, then here’s a shout-out to Anders, Ollie, Will, Plum, Mum and Dad – I love you all. Over and out.
Prima
DONNA
by
Karen Swan
Breaking the rules was what she liked best. That was her sport.
Renegade, rebel, bad girl. Getting away with it.
Pia Soto is the sexy and glamorous prima ballerina, the Brazilian bombshell who’s shaking up the ballet world with her outrageous behaviour. She’s wild and precocious, and she’s a survivor. She’s determined that no man will ever control her destiny. But ruthless financier Will Silk has Pia in his sights, and has other ideas . . .
Sophie O’Farrell is Pia’s hapless, gawky assistant, the girl-next-door to Pia’s prima donna, always either falling in love with the wrong man or just falling over. Sophie sets her own dreams aside to pick up the debris in Pia’s wake, but she’s no angel. When a devastating accident threatens to cut short Pia’s illustrious career, Sophie has to step out of the shadows and face up to the demons in her own life.
Christmas at
TIFFANY’S
by
Karen Swan
Three cities, three seasons, one chance to find the life that fits.
Cassie settled down too young, marrying her first serious boyfriend. Now, ten years later, she is betrayed and broken. With her marriage in tatters and no career or home of her own, she needs to work out where she belongs in the world and who she really is.
So begins a year-long trial as Cassie leaves her sheltered life in rural Scotland to stay with each of her best friends in the most glamorous cities in the world: New York, Paris and London. Exchanging grouse moor and mousy hair for low-carb diets and high-end highlights, Cassie tries on each city for size as she attempts to track down the life she was supposed to have been leading, and with it, the man who was supposed to love her all along.
The Perfect
PRESENT
by
Karen Swan
Memories are a gift . . .
Haunted by a past she can’t escape, Laura Cunningham desires nothing more than to keep her world small and precise – her quiet relationship and growing jewellery business are all she needs to get by. Until the day when Rob Blake walks into her studio and commissions a necklace that will tell his enigmatic wife Cat’s life in charms.
As Laura interviews Cat’s family, friends and former lovers, she steps out of her world and into theirs – a charmed world where weekends are spent in Verbier and the air is lavender-scented, where friends are wild, extravagant and jealous, and a big love has to compete with grand passions.
Hearts are opened, secrets revealed and as the necklace begins to fill up with trinkets, Cat’s intoxicating life envelops Laura’s own. By the time she has to identify the final charm, Laura’s metamorphosis is almost complete. But the last story left to tell has the power to change all of their lives forever, and Laura is forced to choose between who she really is and who it is she wants to be.
Christmas at
CLARIDGE’S
by
Karen Swan
The best presents can’t be wrapped . . .
This was where her dreams drifted to if she didn’t blot her nights out with drink; this was where her thoughts settled if she didn’t fill her days with chat. She remembered this tiny, remote foreign village on a molecular level and the sight of it soaked into her like water into sand, because this was where her old life had ended and her new one had begun.
Portobello – home to the world-famous street market, Notting Hill Carnival and Clem Alderton. She’s the queen of the scene, the girl everyone wants to be or be with. But beneath the morning-after make-up, Clem is keeping a secret, and when she goes too far one reckless night she endangers everything – her home, her job and even her adored brother’s love.
Portofino – a place of wild beauty and old-school glamour. Clem has been here once before and vowed never to return. But when a handsome stranger asks Clem to restore a neglected villa, it seems like the answer to her problems – if she can just face
up to her past.
Claridge’s – at Christmas. Clem is back in London working on a special commission for London’s grandest hotel. But is this really where her heart lies?
The
SUMMER
WITHOUT
YOU
by
Karen Swan
Everything will change . . .
Rowena Tipton isn’t looking for a new life, just a new adventure; something to while away the months as her long-term boyfriend presses pause on their relationship before they become engaged. But when a chance encounter at a New York wedding leads to an audition for a coveted house share in the Hamptons – Manhattan’s elite beach scene – suddenly a new life is exactly what she’s got.
Stretching before her is a summer with three eclectic housemates, long days on white-sand ocean beaches and parties on gilded tennis courts. But high rewards bring high stakes and Rowena soon finds herself caught in the crossfire of a vicious intimidation campaign. Alone for the first time in her adult life, she has no one to turn to but a stranger who is everything she doesn’t want – but possibly everything she needs.
Christmas in
THE SNOW
by
Karen Swan
In London, the snow is falling and Christmas is just around the corner – but Allegra Fisher barely has time to notice. She’s pitching for the biggest deal of her career and can’t afford to fail. When she meets attractive stranger Sam Kemp on the plane to the meeting, she can’t afford to lose her focus. But when Allegra finds herself up against Sam for the bid, their passion quickly turns sour.
In Zermatt in the Swiss Alps, a long-lost mountain hut is discovered in the snow after sixty years. The last person expecting to become involved is Allegra – she hasn’t even heard of the woman they found inside. It soon becomes clear the two women are linked and, as she and her best friend Isobel travel out to make sense of the mystery, hearts thaw and dark secrets are uncovered . . .
