I hope you have enjoyed the second novel in the Seabreeze Farm series. Although I don’t own a donkey sanctuary, I was born a stone’s throw from the cliffs that overlook the English Channel. I also grew up on a small holding, where taking in stray animals was a fairly regular event and, by the time I’d left home, I’d done everything from covering the night shift feeds for abandoned lambs to delivering a foal with nothing more than the aid of an Encyclopaedia Britannica – long before the days of Google! So I’ve drawn upon a lot of personal experiences to write the Seabreeze Farm series and it’s very close to my heart as a result.
This book is dedicated to the wonderful Peter Glanvill. Sadly, Peter is no longer with us, but both he and his wonderful wife, Maureen, have been like family to us from the day we met them. Peter was the epitome of what all good fathers should be and he did an amazing job of filling the vacancy of granddad in the lives of my children, after both their grandfathers died before they were born. We all still miss Peter, but his memory lives on and I don’t think I ever saw him without a smile on his face.
The support for my books from bloggers and reviewers so far has been incredible and I can’t thank them enough. To all the readers who choose to spend their time and money reading my books, and especially those who take the time to get in touch, it means such a lot to me and I feel so privileged to be doing the job I love.
Thanks too to all the subscribers to my newsletter; if you haven’t signed up yet you can find the link on my Twitter account and Facebook author page. There are lots of opportunities to enter competitions and contribute to the books by naming a character or, in the case of the Seabreeze Farm series, an animal! You’ll also receive exclusive free short stories from time to time too.
My thanks as always go to the team at Boldwood Books for their help, especially my amazing editor, Emily Ruston, for lending me her wisdom to get this book into the best possible shape and set the scene for the next book in the series. Thanks too to my wonderful copy editor and proofreader, Candida, for all her hard work. I’m really grateful to Nia, Claire and the rest of the team for all their hard work behind the scenes and especially for marketing the books so brilliantly, and to Amanda for having the vision to set up such a wonderful publisher to work with.
As ever, I can’t sign off without thanking my writing tribe, The Write Romantics, and all the other authors who I am lucky enough to call friends.
Finally, as it always will, my biggest thank you goes to my family – Lloyd, Anna and Harry – for their support, patience, love and belief in the years it took to get to this point. I love you all, and baby Arthur, more than you’ll ever know.