Leanne hadn’t slowed the boat after Joe’s near-miss and the distance lengthened between them. ‘Look after each other,’ she called back, ‘or I’ll be back to sort you out.’

‘You had better come back anyway!’ Joe called.

Leanne tried not to look back for the longest time and when she did, she found only Joe had persisted in following in her wake. He waved furiously and when Leanne squinted her eyes, she tried so hard to place Lois next to him.

‘Goodbye, my friend,’ Leanne whispered, before turning to face the future.

Acknowledgements

It’s fair to say that this book has given me many challenges, and the first was creating a world where I had to inflict a major disaster on a small community. I couldn’t bring myself to wish harm on a real place, and that’s why I decided to return to the fictional town of Sedgefield, somewhere in Cheshire, which has been used in some of my other books.

The disaster I describe isn’t based on a real-life event, but my writing has been influenced by such tragedies. The victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were never far from my thoughts, as were the victims of Hillsborough. My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost their lives, and the loved ones left behind to fight for justice and mourn their loss.

When I started writing this story, I could never have imagined that I would be editing it in the middle of a pandemic, at a time when a trip to the theatre would be impossible and mass gatherings illegal. And while I never intended to put a date stamp on the events in my novel, I think we can all agree that it couldn’t have happened in 2020. I can only hope that, you, the reader, are enjoying better times and we are once again savouring the joy of doing the things we once took for granted.

What could have been another challenge for me was having my editor go on maternity leave during the editing process, and I was immensely relieved to have the benefit of Martha Ashby’s wise words and guidance on the first draft, literally days before she became a mum. A huge thank you to Kate Bradley, who had the unenviable task of taking me under her wing and has been the best surrogate editor I could wish for. Thank you also to Luigi Bonomi and Hannah Schofield from LBA Books for being the greatest champions of my work. I hope I’ve done enough to make you all proud.