A sound, almost but not quite a scream, erupted from her throat. ‘Shit!’ she exclaimed. ‘Shitting shit!’ Her hand flew to her mouth and she had to sit down for fear she would fall to the ground. What on earth was this about? Why was Graham Westbury emailing her and how in the hell did he know what her as-yet-to-be-submitted-to-anyone book was called?

With a shaking hand, she opened the email and willed her eyes to focus on the words in front of her.

Dear Jo,

First of all, I apologise for the early hour of this email. I have been up through the night reading your manuscript, The Lies We Tell, and I simply couldn’t go to sleep until I had made contact with you.

This is one of the strongest submissions I have received in recent times. You have written a taut and powerful thriller, which is perfect for the current market. While I do think it could benefit from some additional editing, I think the standard with which you write is exceptionally high.

I would love to chat with you regarding representation and how I envisage growing your career. I believe we could make a great team. Please let me know a time that would suit for a phone chat, and maybe we could arrange a face-to-face meeting in London, courtesy of the Westbury Agency.

I appreciate you may have interest from other agents, so I shall direct you to my website for details of my current client list. This will give you an idea of what I hope to achieve for you.

Warmest regards, in anticipation of hearing from you,

Graham Westbury

Jo read the email five times. Then she clicked on the sender’s email address in case it was someone pretending to be Graham Westbury. She half expected the email address to read [email protected], but instead it appeared entirely genuine and had been sent from [email protected].

But surely it couldn’t be genuine. Not least because Jo had not submitted her book to anyone. The only person she had sent it to was Libby, who had forwarded it on to Ewan, of course.

But surely Ewan wouldn’t have gone over her head and showed it to his agent without discussing it with her first. Especially when he had already suggested a plethora of changes and a tight edit.

But Libby Quinn, however… Libby Quinn was exactly the kind of person who would submit her book without telling her first. In that moment, as the words Graham had written were still sinking in, she didn’t know if she wanted to kill Libby or tell her she loved her with all her heart.

She’d settle for a phone call. Scrolling to Libby’s name in her phone, she hit the call button and listened as it rang. A rather groggy-sounding Libby answered after the fifth ring with a husky ‘Hello’.