The character of the social worker in the initial 1983 chapter was named after Fiona, who won an auction for Doctors Against Borders. Thank you so much, Fiona.
Acknowledgements
This book wouldn’t have been possible without the wonderful team at Michael Joseph, particularly my brilliant editor Maxine Hitchcock, who is always so encouraging of my ideas, always calm, kind and clever. I love our meet-ups and talks about everything from writing to must-watch Netflix documentaries. This book is so much better than it would have been thanks to her hard work and insightful editing skills. A huge thank-you also to Rebecca Hilsdon, Emma Plater, Olivia Thomas, Sriya Varadharajan, Bea McIntyre, and everyone in Marketing, Sales and Art for all their hard work, dedication and creativity. I’m so grateful for everything you do, from the amazing covers to getting the book onto shelves. I’m so lucky to work with such a great team.
As always, a huge thank-you to Hazel Orme for her meticulous copy-edits, picking up on my continuity errors and grammar, as well as her enthusiasm for my stories.
So much love to my family: my mum, dad, step-parents, sister Sam and step-sister Sharon and brothers-in-law Mark and Jeff. To my amazing husband, Ty, for his continued patience and endless support and my lovely children, Claudia and Isaac, who might now just be getting old enough to read my books – not that they want to! To my in-laws, Lu, Steve, Tam, Rick, Teresa, and my cute little nieces. To my wonderful friends; particularly Alex （who kindly let me use her name in this book）， Carinne, Elizabeth, Jacq, Nicky, Esther, Tanya, Magda, Verity, Jeanine, Claire, Carey and Liz. And a special thanks to Justine for all the word races. I don’t know what I’d do without you all.
Thank you to the West Country writers crew, Tim and Gilly for all the meet-ups, chats and laughs. And to other writer friends, Liz, Jo, Fiona, Gilly, Fleur and Sarah for support, word races and WhatsApp messages.
A huge thank-you to all the amazing readers for buying, borrowing, talking about and recommending my books. I wouldn’t be here without your support. To all the bloggers, who take time to read and review my books: you do such a great job. And to the supermarkets and bookshops and libraries. I’m so grateful.
And finally, to the person this book is dedicated to, my agent Juliet Mushens.
Juliet offered to represent me back in 2013 after I won a novel-writing competition run by Marie Claire magazine, where she was one of the judges. At the time there was no guarantee my book would even be published, but as soon as I met her I could see she is a force to be reckoned with. Since then she has worked tirelessly on making sure that that book, which became The Sisters, was a stepping stone to a writing career. She has been responsible for getting me fantastic publishing deals, both here and abroad. Not only is she a brilliant agent but she’s a fabulous person: a fashion icon, funny, super-smart, supportive and loyal. And she loves cats! Thank you so much, Juliet. Six books! This wouldn’t have been possible without you.