I’m so excited to welcome author Jenny Bayliss to my blog today to share an exclusive bonus scene for her newest novel, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe! Jenny’s Twelve Dates of Christmas was the highlight of my Christmas reading last year, and I was immensely excited when I discovered that she was writing a new Christmas book! I can attest to the fact that it’s absolutely wonderful, and this bonus scene is the icing on top! I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did. Read more about Jenny and Meet Me Under the Mistletoe below!
I was really chuffed when Jana asked me if I’d like to contribute to her Christmas blog event this year. She very helpfully suggested some blog ideas, one of which was to write an extra scene for a book, and that got me thinking. I love a book to have a happy ending, especially at Christmas but I also like to think about what lies beyond that final page. What happens to those characters in the immediate aftermath of saving the day, winning the girl/guy, capturing their hearts desire? In the real world those moments, while important and often lifechanging, are not the end, but rather the beginning of a new chapter in our own stories; the birth of a child, a wedding day, a new job etc. So, I decided to write a scene after Isaac and Nory’s happy ending but before the epilogue. If you haven’t read Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, then I should warn you now that this extra scene contains spoilers!
Meet Me Under The Mistletoe Bonus Scene by Jenny Bayliss
It was Christmas day and Nory had been like a meerkat all morning, never too far from one of the steamed-up windows, in the hopes of spotting Isaac on his way to the house.
Following their estrangement of the previous weeks, she and Isaac had spent a blissful Christmas Eve together, wandering around the deserted Castle grounds and having the most excellent make-up sex in Isaac’s cottage.
Nory had returned home later that afternoon – to a barrage of nosy questions – for the obligatory Christmas dinner vegetable prep-a-thon. This involved the entire family, including Ameerah, sitting around the kitchen table drinking dad’s homemade damson gin while peeling and chopping the components for the next day’s feast.
Jackson and Lucas had been set the task of filling the log baskets in the sitting room and kitchen with wood from the log-store at the far end of the garden. The garden was long, and their little arms could only carry two logs at a time, which meant several trips; it was a cunning plan designed to tire out two small boys over excited by the prospect of Father Christmas visiting that night.
After a supper of mum’s famous chestnut and sherry soup with hot crusty bread, they settled in the sitting room to watch A Muppet’s Christmas Carol. And when the credits began to roll Shelley and Thomas bundled their sleepy children into hats and coats and made the short walk home, to hang stockings and set out treats for Santa and his reindeer.
Nory had awoken on Christmas morning with more than what was in her stocking on her mind. Not even her dad’s excessively boozy breakfast bucks’ fizz or the doorstop bacon sarnie was enough to quell her nervous anticipation. As much as she wanted to be with Isaac at Christmas, she wasn’t sure Isaac was ready for the full force of the Noels’.
This was the first time Nory had ever invited a boyfriend to spend Christmas day with her family and she felt a little anxious. Her dad was infamous for scaring off her boyfriends and her family in general could be a little intimidating for the uninitiated.
Of course Isaac already knew everybody but this was the first time he’d been around the family as more than simply her brother’s mate and a customer of the family business. Would their romantic status change that dynamic? Would her dad suddenly start grilling Isaac about his political leanings and intentions, as was his habit with the men Nory brought home. Would her brother regale Isaac with mortifying stories of previous boyfriends and embarrassing childhood antics? Would her mum, who never knowingly let a person leave her house hungry, feed Isaac until he was sick? And how was Nory herself supposed to behave with Isaac in front of her family? Would it be weird to hold his hand? Should she kiss him on the lips or the cheek when he arrived? What if their knees touched on the sofa!
‘Seriously Nory, you have got to stop over-thinking this!’ Ameerah was wearing a purple plastic tiara – her Christmas present from Jackson and Lucas – which weirdly suited her.
Nory had begun to pace the shag pile carpet.
‘I just don’t want anyone to freak out. This is uncharted territory; I don’t want it to be weird. I need everyone to play it cool so as not to frighten him off.’
‘He’s not a rabbit, Nory, and if our friends didn’t frighten him off, I doubt your family will. The only person freaking out here is you. Relax, it’s not like Isaac has to win anyone over, your family already thinks he’s the dog’s boll…’ she caught sight of Lucas eyeing her and cleared her throat, ‘the cats pyjamas,’ she finished.
‘I suppose you’re right. And we could always hide in one of the polytunnels if things get uncomfortable.’
Ameerah opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Isaac was here. Suddenly all Nory’s concerns evaporated as she waded through the discarded wrapping paper on the floor and ducked beneath low hanging paperchains to get to the front door. She wrenched it open and there he was, her Isaac, smiling back at her. Without a second thought she leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and kissing him fiercely. He kissed her back, laughing.
‘Now that’s what I call a hello,’ he smiled. ‘Can you promise to always greet me like this?’
‘So long as your spine can take it,’ Nory replied.
‘Oh, I think I can handle you.’ He winked.
‘Merry Christmas Isaac.’
‘Merry Christmas Nory Noel.’
‘So much for playing it cool,’ said Ameerah.
Nory unwound herself from Isaac’s embrace and they turned, grinning sheepishly to find the rest of the Noel family standing in the doorway observing them. Jackson and Lucas giggled uncontrollably at the spectacle of aunty Nory and Isaac ‘doing snogging.’
Sasha clapped her hands together.
‘Well, don’t just stand there you two, come on in, dinners about ready and that 12lb turkey isn’t going to eat itself! I hope you’re hungry Isaac because nobodies leaving this house until every last stuffing ball is eaten.’
Nory followed in behind Isaac as he was clapped on the back and hugged and welcomed by all. She closed the door on the cold grey weather outside and took a moment to revel in the warmth and chaos of her impossibly loud, complicated, wonderful family. Every window was opaque with condensation, Christmas pop music blared out of her dads old CD player and there was hardly enough space to stand let alone sit. The little house was bursting at the seams with the people she loved best in the world and Nory knew that whatever the day presented, this would be a very merry Christmas indeed.
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss
Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons on September 27, 2022
Genres: Contemporary Romance — Christmas
Add to Goodreads • Buy on Amazon
A city bookshop owner heads to the English countryside for a holiday reunion— only to face her childhood enemy.
Elinor Noel—Nory for short—is quite content running her secondhand bookshop in London. Forever torn between her working-class upbringing and her classmates’ extravagant lifestyles at the posh private school she attended on scholarship, Nory has finally figured out how to keep both at equal distance. So when two of her oldest friends invite their whole gang to spend the time leading up to their wedding together at the castle near their old school, Nory must prepare herself for an emotionally complicated few days.
The reunion brings back fond memories, but also requires Nory to dodge an ill-advised former fling. When she falls quite literally into the arms of Isaac, the castle’s head gardener, who has nothing but contempt for the “snobby prep school kids,” the attraction between them is undeniable. And as Nory spends more time with Isaac during the wedding festivities, she finds herself falling hard for the boy she used to consider an enemy. Nory and Isaac explore their common ground, but pressures mount on all sides, and Nory must decide what kind of life she wants to live and what sort of love is worth the risk . . .
A former professional cake baker, Jenny Bayliss lives in a small seaside town in the UK with her husband, their children having left home for big adventures. She is also the author of The Twelve Dates of Christmas, A Season for Second Chances, and Meet Me Under the Mistletoe.
Header photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash
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