That Awkward Age

There is more to some vicars than meets the eye, but when Robert Peabody, handsome, divorced and forty-something, moved into the village of Bumpstaple, few could have predicted just how wildly different a vicar he would prove to be. Mavis Entwhistle, creator of the world's most terrible pastry, thought she had an inkling; but then she thought she had magical powers, too, so this was not surprising. And her uncommonly beautiful daughter Sally, exhausted by her mother's efforts to marry her off, refused to acknowledge the inevitable: that the whole village had decided she would make the perfect vicar's wife.

Josh, Robert's son, found romance more easily when he met Claire on the school bus. She was fifteen, a truly awkward age to be, made worse by spots and the dreadful embarrassment of her mother Tessa's advancing pregnancy--and at her age, too! And now cousin Hugh, the bug-collector from Hell, was coming to stay until Christmas. Robert planned a carol service, a triumphant celebration of village life to bring his new parish together, but it was Hugh who added the final extra touch to the evening...