Thank you first and foremost to you – lovely reader – for reading this book. I really hope you enjoyed it! I wouldn’t get to be here without you, so thank you for keeping me in a job that I mostly adore (all except that point in the first draft between 40–60,000 words where I would usually rather eat my own arm than write). Also sending big book love if you leave a review for it too – it makes such a huge difference to a book’s visibility, so thank you! To all the book reviewers and bloggers, thanks for picking my book off your ever-increasing TBR piles and taking the time to review it – you are all superstars.
To my agent Hannah Ferguson, thank you for always being there to bounce ideas off and for general cheerleading when times get tough (cough, that dreaded 40–60k). Also, to the rest of the team at Hardman and Swainson – Jo, Caroline, Thérèse and Nicole for all they do for my books.
I’m also delighted to have found a home at HQ. Thank you to my editor Emily Kitchin for making me dig deeper and for really helping to bring Izzy’s story to life. Thank you also to the rest of the team at HQ who I’m looking forward to getting to know better! And to Jon Appleton for the copy-edit and the kind words about it.
A big thank you to Julia and Frederike at Droemer Knaur for their continued support, and their enthusiasm for We Just Clicked.
This book was such a joy to write in so many places. I took my Instagram research very seriously and all those times when my husband told me off for scrolling, I could tell him I was actually working – and not faffing about on Insta. In some places it was also heartbreaking to write and I could only imagine the pain of losing a sibling. Whilst the Heart2Heart charity is fictitious, there are charities such as The British Heart Foundation and CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) that offer support and information about Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS).
I absolutely loved writing the scenes based in McKinley’s Insurance. The company was based on a big organisation that I spent many a happy summer temping at during my university years and, whilst they never had an office bake off, they did keep coming up with kooky ideas to make work ‘fun’. The real Mrs Harris, who still scares me a little, asked me to put her into a book and so I did. I hope that it made you smile. Thanks also to my friend Kaf, who gave me as much of an insight as she could remember about working in insurance – any errors are all mine.
Thanks to my friends for keeping me sane during writing: Ken and Janine Nicholson, Jon and Deb Stoelker, Heather Mason, fellow rom-com writer Lorraine Wilson, Marie Amsler, Catherine de Courcy and (much missed) Diane Barcelli. Also to my far-flung friends that support me wherever they are: Christie, Sarah, Sonia, Ali, Laura, Kaf, Hannah, Jo, Sam, Ross and Zeenat.
To my family as ever, thank you for putting up with me whilst I wrote this – Evan and Jess – sorry I spend so much time hiding away behind my keyboard. To John and Mum, Heather and Harold and Jane – thanks for being so supportive. Finally thanks to my husband Steve for always being there and providing me with much needed Baileys/gin/chocolate buttons.