Jayne Osborne—formerly my editor at Pan Macmillan—you may have left Pan Mac for new and exciting adventures, but you will never leave my heart. Thank you for championing my books from the very first. And thanks to Kinza Azira—my new editor—for stepping in and hitting the ground running to get this book published. Already you are tackling my panicky emails with good grace, and I thank you for it!
To you, dear reader, I will be eternally grateful that out of the millions of brilliant books on offer you chose to read mine. I still can’t believe I get to fulfill my dream of writing books, and that is all down to you. Thank you! To the wonderful, creative people on Instagram, Twitter, and BookTok, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support, your kind reviews, and for sharing my books on the interweb. It means the world to me. I have found my booky family on Bookstagram, and you are awesome! Bianca-bemused-tree-frog, Kate-of-sock-knitting-genius, and Jean Meltzer, sublime human and writer, I’m so glad we met. Thank you to Lauren Bethancourt and the amazing Bayou Book Babes for letting me be a part of your book club; I love our meetings and I am so thankful for you all. And to Lauren Garcia, fearless leader of the Read Rovers Book Club, thank you for your friendship and support. Book people are the best people. To my friends in the flesh, a million thank-yous for tolerating my long absences while I write and for welcoming me back when I re-emerge bewildered and desperate for cake.
Thankfulness plays a big part in the end of this book, and I am blessed to have so many people in my own life to be thankful for. I feel lucky every day that my greatest friends happen to be my siblings; Linzi and Simon, you are the best. Thanks, Mum and Dad, for being the loudest, proudest cheerleaders for all your children and grandchildren; you give us power. Thank you to my boys, Jack and Will, for being an endless source of joy. And for Dom—husband, best friend, soother of perimenopausal wife, and fellow plant nerd—thank you for letting me be extremely dramatic when writing is hard and for telling me that it will all be okay in the end.
Kindness is everything. My heart is full.