Extract from The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach by Kat French

Today it's my my pleasure to be sharing with you an extract from Kat French's new book The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach which Emma has just reviewed, you can read what she thought here.

A Greek island solves all life’s problems…doesn’t it?

Winnie, Stella and Frankie have been best friends forever.

When their lives unexpectedly unravel, they spontaneously decide to buy a gorgeous B&B on a remote Greek island. Drenched in hot sun, Villa Valentina is the perfect escape from reality. But when Winnie meets Jesse, their brooding neighbour, she finds that Greece is full of its own complications – not least how attractive he is…

Meanwhile, Frankie and Stella are discovering that Villa Valentina has its own secrets – starting with the large supply of gin in the cellar and the arrival of a famous rock band. A band with one very good-looking member who just might distract Frankie from thoughts of her husband…

Movement flickered in her peripheral vision, and she squinted between the trees. Bingo. Not just one donkey. Two. 

‘At bloody last,’ Winnie muttered, shaking her leg to flick the irritating grit out of her flip-flop. A low stone wall ran around the perimeter of his olive grove, so she swung herself over it and started picking her way through the gnarled trees towards The Fonz. As she drew nearer, neither of the animals took the remotest bit of notice of her. 

'Hello, Fonzy,’ she said, in the quiet, polite manner with which she might greet an elderly relative. Nothing. Not so much as the flicker of an ear from either of them. 

‘Chachi?’ she said, more uncertain this time as she moved within a few feet of the donkeys. One of them was pure white and considerably bigger than the other, and he lifted his head and gazed briefly in her direction before returning peacefully to grazing. 

'OK,’ she said under her breath, walking closer to the smaller, grey donkey. ‘If he’s Chachi, then I guess that must make you The Fonz.’ She reached out a tentative hand and stroked him between the ears. ‘I’m Winnie, your new owner, and I’ve come to take you home.

He really did seem very indifferent to her. As a non-rider, she’d vaguely imagined that he’d have a saddle on, or a harness at least, something that she’d be able to lead him by, but he didn’t. He was, for all intents and purposes, naked. 

'How are we going to do this then?’ she asked, walking around him slowly. Running an experimental hand over his flank, she tried giving him a little two-handed push from behind but he didn’t even seem to register it. She tried a second time, this time with a little more effort, and he swished his tail as if a fly might have landed on his backside. 

'Bloody hell, Fonzy,’ she grumbled. ‘You need to go on a diet, buddy. You weigh a bloody ton.’ 

'Why are you fondling my donkey?

Winnie didn’t need to turn around to know who was behind her. 

She was quite glad that it wasn’t The Fonz after all. ‘Might have known this one was yours,’ she said to the neighbour. ‘He seems as stubborn and unwelcoming as his owner.’