Thank you to my early readers, for their generosity, honesty and encouragement: Naomi Booth, Helen Francis, Mary Morris, Ben Platts-Mills, Sarah Savitt and Robert Williams. Thank you to Harry Perrin, Hannah Dearden-Watts and Polly Ho-Yen for their advice; Anouchka Grose for helping me see what I was writing about; and Christina Petrie, for long-standing inspiration and support.
Will Francis and Francesca Main, I couldn’t have designed a more perfect agent and editor: thank you. Thank you to Victoria Murray-Browne for her wisdom, unstinting encouragement and support, and superior advice. And to my parents, for giving me the space and security to think writing a novel might be a good idea.
This book would not exist without Chris Stork; thank you for getting it started, getting it finished and everything in between.