A sadly neglected and little-used shared garden area features in this book, and I realise now just how many blocks of flats, especially in city areas, have similarly inadequate outside space, or none at all, so I am very grateful in these worrying times to have a garden of my own to relax in, complete with lumpy lawn, flowers, trees and the occasional squirrel. While our jobbing gardener has been unable to visit as frequently as usual, I have found out just how much work goes into keeping it neat and weed-free. So, a big thank you to him and to all those people who help to keep our lives ticking over but rarely get acknowledged – from the binmen to the hairdressers to the postmen and delivery drivers, and to the many actors (just like Madi) and behind-the-scenes crew whose livelihoods will have been so badly affected by the closure of theatres and the halting of filming. It sometimes takes a crisis to realise how important a role they all play.

This summer I have really missed my pub lunches with writer friends, garden barbecues, trips out to concerts and theme parks, regular strolls round the clothes shops and, most importantly of all, spending time with my grandchildren, but thank heavens for my two cats, Pixie and Dixie, who I have been allowed to cuddle as much as I like, and to a never-ending supply of wonderful e-books which have done so much to keep me entertained and distract my thoughts away from reality and into the fictional happy-ever-after world I love best.

A very important aspect of a writer’s life, apart from all that reading, is keeping in touch with other writers. In normal times, the summer of 2020 would have seen me attending fortnightly meetings of my local writers’ group Phrase Writers, listening to author talks in my local library, spending a lovely weekend at the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s annual conference in Telford, and enjoying a special lunch and presentation at the House of Lords with fellow members of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. Of course, none of that happened. Still, I would like to thank those wonderful organisations, and so many others, including my own publishers, for keeping in touch with everyone via email, newsletters, phone calls, online book clubs, e-learning opportunities, videos, social media, Zoom and all manner of technological meet-up platforms that many of us had never used before. The friendship, support and sharing of all things book-related may have felt different this year but are as much appreciated as ever, if not more so.

I must also take this opportunity to thank Charlotte Ledger, Bethan Morgan and everyone at One More Chapter, who have managed to edit the manuscript, design a cover and generally work so hard to get this book out, despite the inevitable obstacles that working from their own homes must have thrown in their way. Thanks too, to copy editor Fran Fabriczki for doing such a good job of pointing out all those tiny little errors it is so easy to miss when reading one’s own story for what feels like the hundredth time!