Puffin Bay is a fictional small seaside town set on the very real island of Anglesey, or Ynys Môns as its name is in Welsh. We started visiting Anglesey on a regular basis from 2001, often driving there and back in a day to walk along some of the coastal path or take a boat ride around Puffin Island. The island is a quiet, calm refuge, with lots of beautiful places to relax as well as a really good food scene - some of my favourite restaurants are there.
When Amelie from the Callaghan Green series needed a move away from London, Anglesey was the ideal place for her to retreat to and so the idea for Puffin Bay was born. Many of the places referred to in the series are real, and several of them provide visual inspo for the town.
South Stack Lighthouse is meant to be haunted! In Puffin Bay, it would be one of the lighthouses looked after by Than; in real life, it's a lot different.
The little village of Moelfre is too small to be Puffin Bay, but it was the main visual inspiration for the town. It's a lovely village, with a number of boats usually there too, and the lifeboat station.
This guy is on the coastal path at Moelfre, near the lifeboat station. This was part of the inspo for Joel McAllister.
The beaches around the island are all gorgeous. This was taken from the beach between Red Wharf Bay and Benllech.
South Stack Lighthouse is meant to be haunted! In Puffin Bay, it would be one of the lighthouses looked after by Than; in real life, it's a lot different.
Another one of Moelfre!
Built centuries ago and never finished, castles like Beaumaris are scattered all over north Wales. Referenced in the books as a place to visit.
Use as the inspo for the cover of Wild Tides, this lighthouse isn't lived in though!
Heartbreak led me to Puffin Bay, searching for peace in a small, coastal town. Four years later, my bar is thriving and my next business is just what the town needs.
It doesn’t need Roman Tominey. Arrogant, city-boy, suit-wearing grump - he knows how to push every one of my buttons, and after an evening of bad decisions, he knows how to push that one too.
When Roman’s newly found teenage son joins him, Roman’s summer stay is extended. We spend the days arguing over a building project the local council insist we do together, and the evenings with him sneaking into my room.
Then Roman’s ideas for Puffin Bay’s development cause all out war between us.
Those sparks between us? They become weapons.
Only Roman doesn’t fire his. It seems he wants something more than another zero on the end of his bank balance and he might just discard his suit - and its buttons - to keep on pressing mine.
No bride expected to be steering a boat in her wedding dress, running away from the day she’d been planning for months.
But that was me.
I was that runaway bride.
In a boat that now had no fuel, stranded on a stretch of dangerous water, and my phone was now swimming with the fishes.
The man who rescued me lived in a lighthouse and was the strong and very silent type, who also happened to foster rescue cats. He was now part of the lifeboat crew and the opposite of the geeky boy he’d been in school. And I’d been the girl he’d secretly crushed on.
Thane didn’t want a relationship. He wanted a quiet life with no complications.
I wanted to get under another man to get over the one I’d left at the altar, then I wanted to get the rest of my life on track, back in my small-town home in Puffin Bay.
Neither of us expected the little twist that came our way.
The deal was simple… Pretend to be in a relationship without falling for each other. Only I’m not sure I can hold my end of the bargain.
I’m the sensible one out of my brothers. The reliable one. The one who doesn’t make hasty decisions. Or at least that was me until Ruby Murray turned up in my small town with her long legs and red lips, and a secret she needed me to help keep.
It should be straightforward – I pretend to be her boyfriend, and she shows my ex-girlfriend I’ve moved on. But this fake relationship feels too real for both of us.
She’s sure we’re just friends – but the benefits suggest it’s a whole lot more.
I’m sure that when she leaves town, she’ll be taking part of me with her.
Ruby thinks we can carry on pretending. She says that this is just a favour to help us both out.
I say a secret wedding proves otherwise. I just need to show her that she can trust me with more than a secret – that I can keep her heart safe as well.
Then hopefully, she’ll stay.
I could always ask my roommate for her advice – but then, I’d prefer to extract my own teeth.
I wasn’t expecting my temporary housemate to be Freya. My housemate was meant to be a lot taller, bald and male – not a wispy fairy-like creature with a thing for incense and crystals.
Freya loved meditating. I preferred to code.
Freya adored people. I thought they should be online only, except for special occasions.
Freya was always smiling. I rationed my smiles for birthdays only.
But Freya was only smiling on the outside. My irritating, meditating, meddling, temporary housemate would do anything for anyone, but never herself. Those smiles concealed what was going on beneath, something I first saw when she thought I wasn’t looking, then she let me see inside a little more.
I liked what I saw, although I pretended not to. She thought she had to be perfect. I thought she was perfect already.
Maybe Freya wasn’t my opposite. Maybe she was the piece that fitted in perfectly to complete my future, the one her tarot cards told me was complicated.
I just need to code myself into hers: I want to be the man who makes her smile.
Forever.
Clover Carew has no job, no home and has never had a proper boyfriend, unless you count the several hundred book-shaped ones. Stopping to help the stranger whose car has broken down on the bridge to the island doesn’t seem like a bad idea, even if it is Halloween. Only the stranger is definitely not Prince Charming, however handsome he looks.
Grayson Wynne has enough problems in his life: a difficult ex-wife, a new position as the island’s doctor, a young son and no form of childcare; he doesn’t need Clover knocking on his door determined to be his good Samaritan. Especially when she comes with feline shaped baggage and legs that are too much of a distraction for a straight-laced single dad.
He needs a nanny, and Clover needs a place to live and a job. She also needs dating lessons, but that’s where Grayson draws the line, one in permanent marker, until Clover has an offer from elsewhere. Then all of a sudden, those straight laces become very very undone…
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