Christmas at the Vicarage by Rebecca Boxall - #TuesdayTeaser

Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.

This week we are looking at Christmas at the Vicarage by Rebecca Boxall.

Rebecca was born in East Sussex and grew up in a bustling vicarage always filled with family, friends and parishioners. She now lives by the sea in Jersey with her husband, three children and Rodney the cat. She read English at the University of Warwick before training as a lawyer and also studied Creative Writing with The Writer's Bureau. She was nominated for the Romantic Novel Awards in 2020.

Rebecca is a new to me author who writes novels which are perfect for the festive season.

The Blurb

It’s been fifteen years since Rosamunde last lived at the vicarage in Potter’s Cove, the pretty coastal village where she grew up, experienced her first true love―and a heartbreak that changed her life forever. But now Potter’s Cove is calling her back: it’s time to make peace with the past and go home.

Rosamunde’s return to the vicarage in the days before Christmas is a whirlwind of festive cheer and heartwarming reunions with friends, family and her loving father, the vicar. And while seeing the old place after all this time stirs painful memories of long-ago grief, it also reminds her of all the love she left behind. Fifteen years ago she vowed never to let herself be vulnerable again―but now that she’s back she’s not so sure. Is it possible that real happiness could strike more than once?

Spanning three decades of family life, Christmas at the Vicarage is a warm, feel-good tale that examines what it means to love and to lose―and to be brave enough to try again.

The Beginning

Prologue

October 2014

Rosamunde stood calmly at the shoreline. She watched the seals bob up and down in the distance and, for this moment, everything seemed right with the world. So still. So peaceful. Until suddenly it wasn't.

In an instant she realised the figures weren't seals at all - they were people. She knew them at once: there was her father and, next to him, her mother, Marguerite. Circling them like seagulls were Rachel, Kizzie, Stephen, Mrs Garfield and Benedict.

It was a bright summer's day; there hadn't been a single blemish in the sky and yet somehow an enormous black cloud had emerged from nowhere and the swimmers had almost simultaneously begun to panic. Rosamunde started to strip off her clothes; she simply had to help them, but her limbs felt heavy and as she lumbered into the sea she felt weighed down by an almighty force of gravity. As she swam into the deep waters she knew there was one person she must save first - someone who would drown if she didn't get there soon.

Suddenly, Rosamunde was awake, sweating, her heart pounding with adrenaline. It was the same dream she's had all week and she was never closer to knowing the answer to the critical question: who was the person she needed to save?

What an exciting prologue. Now, the question for me is, have I got time to read this before Christmas? I would really like to.

(bio information from the author's own website at http://www.rebeccaboxall.co.uk/)