Freya North

The Turning Point: A gripping love story, keep the tissues close...


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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      The News Building

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

      Copyright © Freya North 2015

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

      Cover photograph © Susan Fox / Trevillion Images | Author photograph © Angus Muir 2012

      Freya North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008163297

      Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008163594

      Version: 2016-04-05

       Dedication

      For Maureen Pegg and Jo Smith – my MoJo indeed.

       I would always rather be happy than dignified.

      Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

      La musique commence là ou s’arrête le pouvoir des mots. (Where music starts, words cease.)

      Richard Wagner

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Epigraph

       Part Two: July to December

       Part Three: April

       Part Four: After and Evermore

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       Reading Group Questions

       Q&A with Freya

       A Letter from Freya

       Read on for an extract from THE WAY BACK HOME

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       By the Same Author

       About the Publisher

       SCOTT

      Alone in his truck on an empty stretch of road in the middle of Thompson Country, Scott cursed out loud though no one could hear him. For the previous half an hour, as he drove from the belly of Kamloops and through the entrails of its suburbs, his phone signal had been off and the radio had played crystal clear everything he wanted to hear. His own personal playlist, beamed telepathically back through the radio, providing company and a soundtrack to the three hours remaining of the journey home. And now, as the road climbed and the scenery most deserved a rousing score, the music had gone and, instead, the cell-phone networks were polluting this immaculate part of British Columbia. His phone rang, his voicemail beeped, his phone rang again, his voicemail beeped. The sound wasn’t dissimilar from some god-awful plastic Europop. A barrage of text-message alerts now chimed in like a truly crap middle eight before the calls started again. The phone was in his bag, in the footwell. Whatever risks Scott had taken in his life, he’d only ever driven with two hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road ahead. He pulled over. What, for Christ’s sake, what?

      The voicemail icon with its red spot as angry as a boil. The envelope signifying text messages bursting with four unread. Missed calls. Managing his phone was the only thing in life that Scott was prepared to multitask, because to minimize the time spent on it, was time well spent. He accessed the voicemail whilst clicking into the texts. Before he’d heard a thing he knew what was wrong from Jenna’s two words:

      I’m fine x

      But by then, a recorded voice was filling the car with the details.

      ‘Hi Scott – it’s Shelley. I’ve been trying to contact you – Jenna’s had a seizure. She’s OK now but it lasted near enough five minutes. She hit her head, she has a concussion so they’ve taken her to Squamish just to be sure. It’s just gone two. You have my number so feel free to call me.’

      Scott only vaguely listened to the later messages, all from Jenna’s friend Shelley repeating the information in different tones of voice: tired, upbeat, reassuring, pseudo-medical. He stamped on the gas and drove fast, without looking at the view and with the radio off. There was no quick route. Too many mountains in the way.

      When he opened the door to