Thank you to my agent Teresa Chris and my editor Harriet Bourton – you are absolutely my dream team. Also thanks to Bella Bosworth and Sarah Harwood, and everyone at Transworld who are so brilliant. I have owed my copy-editor Joan Deitch very many thanks for a very long time now: thank you, Joan, for your keen eyes and understanding.
Thank you to Dr Linda Cameron OD for advice on AMD, including giving me funky glasses that replicated Honor’s view of the world. Thanks to Dr Joanna Cannon for advice on mental health services for young people, and Clare Mackintosh for insight into police response to attempted suicide. Thanks to Dr Iris Kwok, Caroline Stewart and my brother Dr Matthew Cohen for medical advice on what to do with an eighty-year-old woman with a broken hip, and to my cousin Sara Kass for advice about physical therapy and really unwise ways to use a mobility scooter. Thanks too to my cousins Olivia and Lewis Kass for advice and demonstrations on how teenagers use social media. Thank you to Irina Hernon for providing Russian translation of insults during our children’s Sports Day, and to Kirsty Jane McCluskey for discussing the nuances of said insults. Thanks to young Oliver Frankland for going through a ‘No!’ phase.
Thank you to my running buddies Harriet Greaves and Claudia Spence for listening to my plot problems while we covered the miles. Thank you to Rowan Coleman for sharing and encouraging certain unhealthy obsessions, and to Brigid Coady, Miranda Dickinson, Tamsyn Murray, Cally Taylor, Kate Harrison, Natasha Onwu, Anna Scamans and Ruth Ng for constant support.
Thanks as always to my husband, my son, and my parents, all of whom have taught me everything and who put up with me.
Last, but certainly not least, thank you to Stonewall (www.stonewall.org.uk) and the It Gets Better Project (www.itgetsbetter.org) for helping young people facing homophobic and transphobic bullying.