He started edging towards the door. He was shaking, desperate to leave.

“Wait for me in the car.” I was in charge now. I gazed back at her, wanted to wipe her blood all over her face, but I knew I had to think about evidence, about the future. My future.

Tony’s shadow loomed across the walls as he left the room. I was glad. I lifted the lamp above my head again, the weight made it drop harder. The curled foot struck her forehead again and again. When my arms were tired and my gloved hands couldn’t lift the lamp anymore she made a wet, grunting sound, and as her eyes filled with blood she kept them fixed on me. I watched as the darkness came for her. And as I watched her life slip away, I felt my own glow and I became alive, reborn. Grace was gone, and Zoe stood in her place.

Author’s Note

**This note contains spoilers**

A friend and I once had a discussion about how all stories are based on real life to varying degrees. I’ve thought about that a lot recently and am inclined to agree. Grace Is Gone is no exception, as the novel was inspired by the story in Missouri of mother and daughter Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard.

Dee Dee was diagnosed posthumously as having Munchausen by proxy or fabricated illness, which is described by the NHS as “a rare form of child abuse. It occurs when a parent or carer, usually the child’s biological mother, exaggerates or deliberately causes symptoms of illness in the child.” Dee Dee inflicted years of unfathomable suffering on her daughter—forcing her to have unnecessary surgeries, making her live in a wheelchair, fabricated endless medical emergencies for her, and even told the world she had the cognitive capacities of a seven-year-old when she was, all along, a healthy young woman. Together with her then boyfriend, Gypsy Rose plotted and carried out her mum’s murder to escape the horrifying abuse. Grace Is Gone is inspired by these real-life events but it is a work of fiction and all the characters and events are products of my imagination.

I found Gypsy Rose’s story absolutely devastating, but the more I thought about it, the more her story raised broader questions in my mind—questions which in time became the bedrock of Meg and Grace’s story. It is a story about what happens when maternal love—possibly the fiercest type of love—mutates and goes wrong. Meg and Grace’s story is also, to my mind, about justice and redemption: like Cara at the end of the novel, I found myself wondering whether murder in extreme circumstances can ever be justified? What if I’d experienced such horrifying and debilitating abuse as Meg inflicted on Grace, who would I be? What if I tried to tell the world, but no one believed me? Would I be driven to commit the ultimate crime to escape?

Would you?

Acknowledgments

I’d like to start by reassuring you that none of the characters in this book are inspired by anyone in my family. James, Otis, Edward, Sandy, Tim, Catherine, Eloise, Joshua, Rose, Alex, Laura, Leo, Barnaby, and Chloe: you can all breathe easy! Thank you for being terrible material for a psychological suspense novel.