Ian Cullingham

A Cotswold Inheritance Ian Cullingham

Ella Thornton's life of love and loss spans seven decades growing up in Chadlington, a village in The Cotswolds. She meets and marries Richard at a dance and they have a son Daniel born in 1939, but Richard is killed in France soon after D-Day. Raising their son on her own, she has to leave her employment as cook from The Manor House in Chadlington. Using her cooking skills, she opens a café in Chipping Norton. This proves to be the turning point in Ella's life as the café goes from strength to strength. After University Daniel begins work for a national daily newspaper. He is so successful that the B. B. C. head hunt him as their foreign correspondent. Ella, Richard and Daniel's lives are told in tandem from this point, up until the death of her second husband Geoffrey. Ella is invited to The Manor House by the new owner Martin Fleet, an international artist. He asks her to cater for a party for Chadlington villagers as a means of getting to know them. Here then is the mystery of this book. Who is Martin Fleet, who was severely wounded in the war and has no memory of his previous life?
After several unexpected twists can Ella discover the truth before time thwarts her efforts?