Acknowledgements

So many people have helped me along the way with The Widow’s Husband.

Thanks to my lovely agent, Hayley Steed, and to everyone else at the fabulous Madeleine Milburn agency. Hayley, I’m so pleased we managed to meet again recently.

To Louise Beere, Ruth Heald, Rona Halsall and Vikki Patis for constant support with my writing.

Several editors were involved with this book due to staff moves at Bookouture. Thanks to Therese Keating, who worked with me initially – it’s been great working with you and I wish you well at Viper Books. To Isobel Akenhead, for interim support while I was between editors: it was lovely to get to know you and learn from your expertise. To my new editor, Susannah Hamilton, I’m already enjoying working with you – plotting is such fun! Also to Eve Hall, thanks for the fabulous line edit you did on this book; it was really enjoyable to work with you and I appreciate your know-how. To Becca Allen and Jane Selley, for enduring and spotting any errors in the proofreads and copy edits you have now done on several of my books. To Emily Boyce and Alex Holmes for final edits. I’d like to thank all the staff at Bookouture, who are a fabulous, friendly publisher to work with, and I am proud to be one of your authors.

And to everyone else – all the other writers I’ve met along the way, too many to name but nonetheless important – I’m so happy to be one of such a friendly group of people.

To my family and friends old and new for believing in me, thank you.

And of course, to Paul.