The One Day You Were My Husband (106)

My very grateful thanks also to the many other medical folk who helped with the writing of this book: Hannah Shiels, Nikki Melia, Harry Yoxall, Heidi Paine, Clare Moser, and staff at the GMC and Royal College of Surgeons.

And to the many others who were so generous with their time and expertise: Mike Peel for opening up his foreign correspondent’s contact book and also bringing to life the old British Embassy building in Bangkok. George Pagliero for intel on underwater archaeology, Sophie Pilgrim for philanthropic consultancy help, and Ryn Jirenwat for a whole bunch of Thailand contacts. Than Raskul for spending hours walking around Bangkok with me while I scribbled away, for getting me into a bunch of places I’d have spent weeks trying and failing to access, and for making sure we always had good food. Thank you to the many lovely people who talked to me during my Swedish and Thai research trips, helping me work through plots and solve problems, and to the security team at Karolinska Hospital who didn’t throw me out for lurking far too long with my notebook. Sincerest thanks to the lovely Emily Johnsson for sorting out my embarrassing Google Translate Swedish.

Thanks also to those who helped me research storylines that ended up on the cutting room floor, and to anyone I may have inadvertently left off this list. That’s always a lurking fear for a novelist.

Without my mighty agent, Lizzy Kremer, neither this book nor anything else in my professional life would happen. Thank you, Lizzy, for always being right, for your incredible editorial input, and your single-minded determination as my strategist, manager, advocate, negotiator, advisor, and friend. I am lucky to have you. Thank you to Maddalena, Orli, and the other excellent and talented people at David Higham Associates.

Special thanks to my film agent, Nicky Lund, for making my life immeasurably more exciting, and Sylvie Rabineau and Nicole Weinroth of WME in Los Angeles. Thanks also to Lainey Gibbons. What a wild and unexpected ride!

A million thanks to Rachael Sharples, Rhian Kane, Sam Norman, Zara Petranova, and Sanskriti Nair in the DHA translations team. Thirty-five languages and counting: it’s ridiculous. I love how, even when you don’t know I’m coming to the office, you’ve always just been having a business meeting about my book with someone on the other side of the world when I pop in. I really could not be in better hands.

To Allison Hunter and her team at Trellis Literary, thank you for pulling off the most incredible things on my behalf. (One day I want to watch you negotiate a book deal.) I only wish I saw you more often.

To my US publishers, my warmest and most heartfelt thanks, not just for the incredible success you’ve brought me but for the editorial power you bring to the table. Pam, you are a true force and you know how to turn my baggy drafts into something that sells around the world like no other. I feel very privileged to be published by you and the team at Pamela Dorman Books/Viking and the wider structure of PRH US. Thank you for publishing me so cleverly and for refusing to let me walk away from a manuscript until it’s flawless. Thank you to the mighty team around you: Brian Tart, Andrea Schulz, Patrick Nolan, Kate Stark, Tricia Conley, Tess Espinoza, Diandra Abernethy, Nicole Celli, Jason Ramirez, Nayon Cho, Sara Wood, Claire Vaccaro, Mary Stone, Chantal Canales, Rebecca Marsh, Sara Delozier, Magdalena Deniz, Andy Dudley, Rachel Obenschain, and of course, Marie Michels and Natalie Grant.

Also to my new and most excellent Canadian editor, Deborah Sun De la Cruz, for sending me back to my manuscript again and again with such insightful and thought-provoking feedback. I was dreading a four-way editorial letter but it vastly exceeded expectations. I’m thrilled to join the PRH Canada stable.

Thank you to my brilliant UK publishers, Pan Macmillan, for the hundreds of combined hours you’ve put in on my behalf. Your energy for me and my writing is palpable and I am so grateful for the all-or-nothing force with which you’ve published my novels. Thank you, Katie Loughnane, for the thoughtful and brilliantly executed edits—for seeing the myriad ways in which I could improve on each round. I’m very excited and grateful to be working with you.

Thank you to my friends all over the world for the conversations and shared experiences that continue to slide into my manuscripts—this one more than ever. When I sit at my desk I never have any idea what I’m going to write, but there’s always something that pops out of the memory bank: a fireside conversation in the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, a tearful night out in Berlin, one of those I-might-actually-die-laughing moments at a friend’s dinner table in London. Either way, thank you for the rich tapestry of experiences you’ve brought to my life that help me be a better writer, and for the loving support of my career as a novelist. Thanks to Hannah Coffin and Mark Liddington for hosting me when I had to get out of my manic house and make my deadline. And a special thanks to the wonderful people I’ve met since moving to Devon. Relocating your family can be a daunting task but I could never have anticipated making so many brilliant and meaningful friendships.

As always I am deeply grateful for (not to mention proud of) my author friends, who continue to rescue me from myself and make me laugh out loud on WhatsApp groups and at author get-togethers, and who remind me that everything is going to be fine. Special thanks to Emylia Hall, Kate Riordan, Cally Taylor, and my writing partner, Deborah O’Donaghue, for thoughtful feedback and reassurance on my early drafts. And huge, huge thanks to every single author who has found the time to read and endorse my books. You know how much that means.

Thank you to my Walsh family, whom I am holding very close as I write these words. To C, who I hold most tenderly of all right now. I love you. We all do. Hang in there. Thank you to my parents for continuing to support me in everything I do, and for tolerating our family visits where my children destroy their house and I barely get to talk to them. Thank you to Caroline and Dave for being my children’s preferred parents.