Table Of ContentPENGUIN BOOKS
SPELLBOUND
Praise for Spellbound
‘Green is the queen of the chick literati – her books are just so damn
readable’ Glamour
‘A compulsive read, with women you can’t help rooting for’ New Woman
‘A deftly humorous and insightful take on modern marriage’ Cosmopolitan
‘An engaging, grown-up read’ Company
‘An emotional rollercoaster of a read’ OK!,
‘A warm and enjoyable read that brims with energy and a sense of fun’
Woman & Home
‘A sexy, romantic read’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly
‘[A] fabulously enjoyable read’ Heat
‘Guaranteed to gratify those with even the most voracious of appetites for
feel-good fiction’ Jewish Chronicle
Praise for Jane Green’s previous bestsellers
‘The bestselling author of Mr Maybe is back with a grown-up take on
love… brimming with acerbic wit’ She
‘Another sure-fire bestseller for Green… comes with a point and a purpose
that do her undoubted skills as a storyteller a huge favour’
The Times
‘This eventful and emotional comedy will have you hooked’ OK!
‘With delightful Babyville, chicklit has grown up. This is a warm, lively,
wise and distinctly unputdownable novel about the impact of maternity…
Told with Green’s trademark honesty and humour, their stories will make
readers laugh, cry and perhaps recognize themselves’ Hello!
‘Green writes with acerbic wit about the law of the dating jungle, and its
obsession with image, and the novel’s as comforting as a bacon sandwich’
Sunday Times
‘The kind of novel you’ll gobble up in a single sitting’ Cosmopolitan
‘A great read: sharp, funny and packed with familiar situations for all those
who’ve ever embarked on the dating game… cancel all those engagements
and read it’ Tatler
‘The literary equivalent of an evening gossiping with your mates… funny
and honest, it’s superb stuff’ Company
‘Spot on… Once you pick up Babyville, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to put it
down’ Mirror
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jane Green lives in Connecticut and London with her husband and four children.
She is the author of Straight Talking, Jemima J, Mr Maybe, Bookends, Babyville
and Spellbound.
Spellbound
JANE GREEN
PENGUIN BOOKS
For Tabitha Faye
Who bewitches me more and more each day…
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by Michael Joseph 2003
Published in Penguin Books 2003
28
Copyright © Jane Green, 2003
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The publishers gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint extracts from the following: ‘Let’s Get It On’
Words and Music by Ed Townsend and Marvin Gaye © 1969, Jobete Music Co. Inc/Stone Diamond Music
Corp/Cherritown Music Pub. Co. Inc., USA. Reproduced by permission of Jobete Music Co. Inc./EMI
Music Publishing Ltd, London WC2H 0QY; ‘This Be the Verse’, from Collected Poems by Philip Larkin.
Reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way
of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior
consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-193893-6
Prologue
This is a story about Alice Chambers, who moved into a house that once
belonged to the writer Rachel Danbury and who, in doing so, discovered
something about herself, her marriage, and her capacity for love. Who changed
her life.
Rachel Danbury was a writer who moved to the town of Highfield in the late
nineteen-thirties. Long after Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald spent a summer in the
neighbouring town of Westport, Rachel was part of a thriving artistic
community, of ex-Manhattanites who had escaped to the suburbs and beyond,
looking for a more relaxed, peaceful way of living.
She wrote two novels that disappeared without trace, but her third, The
Winding Road, caused a huge scandal, a scandal that ultimately forced her to
move away from the town she loved, to a place where nobody would know who
she was.
For Rachel Danbury wrote about her life. She wrote about her marriage, about
her womanizing husband, Jefferson, and about her love for a man named Edward
Rutherford.
She wrote about a small town in Connecticut called Highfield, about the
people who lived there, the people who considered themselves friends. She
exposed the town and its inhabitants with warmth and humour, but with
dangerously sharp accuracy, and they never forgave her for the betrayal.
Rachel Danbury tried to ignore her husband’s infidelities. She told herself he
was simply possessed of extraordinary charm, but when he had an affair with a
woman called Candice Carter, a former starlet for Paramount and owner of the
town theatre, she could no longer pretend she didn’t know what was going on.
Rachel sought solace, and revenge, in the arms of Edward Rutherford, a
neighbour who had always been pleasant, had always been willing to stop for a
chat, and until Rachel set out to – successfully – seduce him, nothing more.
But Rachel and Edward fell in love, and eventually Rachel had to make a
choice between a love that was more meaningful than anything she had ever
known, and her husband.
She chose her husband.
And for the rest of her life Rachel learned to turn a blind eye. She learned to
switch off the light in her bedroom, trying not to think of the fact that her
husband was not lying beside her, trying not to think about where he was or who
he might be with.
The story of Rachel and Jefferson became famous in America in the forties.
Everyone in Highfield knew the people involved, and for years the house in
which Rachel and Jefferson lived – even after Rachel sold it – was thought to
have a curse. Does history repeat itself? The cottage changed hands several
times, and then Alice Chambers and her philandering husband Joe moved in.
And this is where Alice’s story starts.
