Teapots. Book 1. The Fifth Husband
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The residents of Rosehill Home for Gentlefolk have their peaceful, but tedious, lives overturned when recently bereaved Frank Chambers arrives. He immediately becomes the target of the wealthy, statuesque doyenne Joan Holloway-Potts-Jones who plots to make him her fifth husband.
Frank is flabbergasted when he discovers his first love Dulcie Dooley is also living at Rosehill. His joy at finding her after fifty years is soon overshadowed by Joan’s insistence that she saw him first and that Dulcie must be eliminated. At first the pranks are comedic, but they soon develop a sinister undercurrent as Joan becomes increasingly determined to wrench the bewildered Frank away from Dulcie.
When Joan finds Viagra in Frank’s pocket she assumes they’re for her and announces a night of passion. When he doesn't turn up, she flies into a jealous rage, throwing crockery at Dulcie’s door and wreaking havoc in Frank’s bedroom. The next morning, to the amusement of the other residents who’ve been placing bets since the start, she accuses Dulcie of trying to steal her man. When Dulcie announces that her daughter, Stella, is Frank’s Joan collapses with a heart attack and anaphylactic shock. Her only fan, the diminutive besotted Samuel Bristowe convinces her that Frank tried to poison her.
Joan’s hold over Major Longley, the gay superintendent of the home, enables her to get away with her shenanigans but Frank’s infidelity sends her into a paranoid frenzy when he and Dulcie announce their future marriage. Determined to teach them a lesson, Joan sets the Home alight, but when she discovers they weren’t in the building she collapses yet again and disappears in an ambulance with Samuel.
Joan’s ‘guilt’ money finances the rebuilding of the home and Frank and Dulcie’s wedding takes place in a magnificent marquee in the garden three months later. Is all forgiven and forgotten?
