The Lifeboat Helm

Read sample ▶ Listen to a sample

She has never been told no at sea. He has never said anything else. Then a fisherman goes missing in a storm. One lifeboat. One stubborn helm. One Cornishman who won't take no for an answer — or give any other. Billie Hartley is thirty-five, the best inshore lifeboat helm on the Northumberland coast, and the only Hartley sister who never left Merrow Bay. She applied for the coxswain's job three times. They gave it to a man from Cornwall. Jago Tregenza arrives with a one-eyed cat, a holdall full of spare parts and a way of saying no that Billie has never heard before. Two and a half years ago, off the Runnel Stone, he said yes to a gap in the rocks — and a young crewman didn't come home. He hasn't said yes since. Within an hour he has called her engine a disgrace. Within a week he has made her go round the outside. Then, on the night of a storm ten, Ned Pattinson — the crabber who taught Billie to splice on the harbour wall — sends a mayday off Merrow Island and vanishes. The town lays flowers on his empty mooring. But the wreckage came ashore on the wrong side of the island, his beacon stopped after five minutes, his wife hasn't cried once, and a man in a black Range Rover keeps parking by the causeway. To find out what really happened to Ned, Billie will have to trust the one man she can't stand — and he will have to learn to let her take the helm. • A warm, funny seaside romance with a mystery at its heart, set on the present-day Northumberland coast. • Enemies to lovers, a night stranded in a refuge box, and a found family you'll want to move in with. Sensual, not explicit. • Book two of the Merrow Bay Sisters — can be read on its own; every sister gets her own story. Perfect for readers of Jenny Colgan, Sarah Morgan and Holly Martin.