Title

MICHELLE VERNAL LOVES a happy ending. She lives with her husband and their two boys in the beautiful city of Christchurch, New Zealand. She’s partial to a glass of wine, loves a cheese scone and has recently taken up yoga—a sight to behold indeed. She has written eight books to date all of which are written with humour and warmth and she hopes you enjoy reading them. If you enjoy O’Mara’s then taking the time to say so by leaving a review would be wonderful. A book review is the best present you can give an author. If you’d like to hear about new releases in this series, you can sign up to receive her VIP Newsletter via her website and to say thank you, you’ll receive the first ten chapters of her novel, Sweet Home Summer FREE!

www.michellevernalbooks.com

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Also by Michelle Vernal

Sisterly Love

Second-hand Jane

Being Shirley

The Traveller’s Daughter

Sweet Home Summer

The Promise

And...

Introducing: The Guesthouse on the Green

Book 1 - O’Mara’s

Available on Amazon 11 December 2018

The Guesthouse on the Green

O’Mara’s

Michelle Vernal

Michelle Vernal asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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.

The red fox poked his head through the hole he’d dug under the bricks. This was his secret point of entry. A closely guarded gap between the brick wall separating the gardens in which he had his den and his favourite dust bin.

The bin was located around the back of a handsome Georgian townhouse, one of a long row of identical buildings opposite St Stephen’s Green. This particular bin with its scraps of bacon, black and white pudding, sausage, fried potato, toast crusts and on occasion, soda bread had the best pickings in the area.

His ears were pricked for any sounds alerting him to danger and his black nose twitched as he sniffed the night air. It was crisp with a tang of chimney smoke and the remnants of late-night suppers. The only sound was the odd car winding its lonely way home. He waited a beat or two longer and only when he was certain it was safe did he squeeze his bristly body through the gap.

The one and only time he’d been bold enough to investigate the bin’s contents in the early morning hours, he’d encountered a fierce round woman, wielding a rolling pin. She’d shouted at him and waved that wooden baton in a way which meant to do him harm. Thankfully her cumbersome size meant she wasn’t quick enough to catch him, and he’d shot back through his hole into the sanctity of his gardens—safe. He’d heard her muttering about setting a trap, but none had ever been laid. His prowess when it came to keeping the mice at bay, had been his saving grace. It had been a lesson learned, though, and calling as those first shards of morning light broke was a mistake he’d not made twice.

His yellow eyes darted about the courtyard inspecting the shadowed corners. A chink of light peeped through the curtains of the room closest to the back door despite the lateness of the hour. The temptation of what he might find in the bin however was too strong. He couldn’t turn back now, and he crept stealthily over to it, nudging at the lid with his nose. As he felt it budge, he was grateful it never sat as firmly over the lip as it should and with one last good push it slid off, clattering to the ground.

He had to move fast now, and he dived in head first emerging victoriously having snared a piece of bacon rind. It would make a tasty addition to the grasses, berries and odd squirrel he dined on in the gardens. The curtains to the room were wrenched open flooding the courtyard with light. The fox snaffled his rind and scrambled from the bin, jubilantly dragging the sausage he’d found with him. It would make for a feast to be enjoyed back in his den.

He glanced back to see how the land lay. A woman of indeterminable years stood at the window, her tear-stained face peering out into the courtyard. They were a strange lot these humans, he thought squeezing back through the cavity and slipping away into the darkness.