An open book

IT was two days until Christmas and the afternoon sky was blue and crisp as Lydia’s car pulled up in front of the magnificent Bristol Hotel. Why was it called the Bristol? she wondered. It was nowhere

RUTH climbed the narrow path to Windlow Hill. She had a canvas bag in one hand and her mother’s old cardigan tucked under the other. Below, the village looked almost as it had in her childhood – white

HELLO, little one!” Penny Dauntless greeted a robin-redbreast, who cocked his head as she pushed along her trolley of post on the daily round. “How often is there such a perfect mid-December morning?”

JOHANN KERNER saw the woman coming out of the darkness. She looked ancient and she moved as slowly as a snail, her back bent. She was the most likely source of information he had seen on his travels.

TOMMY was cold. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t felt cold. His fingers hurt the most. He folded them inside his woollen jumper and squeezed them tightly. Sometimes it eased the tingling pain. So

TO Jon’s surprise, Mr Pringle agreed to speak to him in the snug. Once they were seated there, Jon spoke quietly. “I’m a stranger here, and I want to keep an open mind. “So it would help if you could