Thanks to my dearest stepmother, Barbi, for reading the manuscript when it was only half-written, and giving me exactly the kind of clear-eyed advice I needed to get it back on track. Without you, I’m not sure I’d ever have finished the book at all.

And thank you to my lovely friend, Dr Lucy Pollock (author of The Book About Getting Older, such an important book!) for casting an eye over the manuscript and checking for medical howlers. Any mistakes are absolutely my own!

Thanks, too, to all the sociopaths and psychopaths on social media who inspired me with their dark and brutally honest confessions. You truly are the most fascinating human beings … though I’m not sure I’d ever want to meet you.

Thanks always to the NetGalley readers and bloggers and book lovers who take the time to review my novels – it really does make a difference and is so much appreciated! I love hearing from you, my readers, so please feel free to contact me via my website, www.tessstimson.com.

Most of all, thanks to my husband, Erik, my sons, Henry and Matt, and my daughter Lily, who provide me with inspiration on a daily basis. That may not always be a good thing, but when your mother is a writer, no disaster is ever wasted.

April 2022

Keep Reading …

You thought she was safe. You were wrong …

‘What a page-turner! I couldn’t put it down.’ Sarah Alderson

UK readers, click here to find out more.

US readers, click here to find out more.

Both of them loved him …

One of them killed him.

‘Tense, twisty, and that ending – wow!’ Jackie Kabler

UK readers, click here to find out more.

US readers, click here to find out more.

Don’t miss Tess Stimson’s other addictive suspense novels …

‘More chilling than Gone Girl and twistier than The Girl on the Train.’ Jane Green

Click here to find out more.

Published in the US as A Mother’s Secret.

About the Author

Tess Stimson is the author of fourteen novels, including top ten bestseller The Adultery Club, and two non-fiction books, which between them have been translated into dozens of languages.

A former journalist and reporter, Stimson was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at the University of South Florida in 2002 and moved to the US. She now lives and works in Vermont with her husband Erik, their three children, and (at the last count) two cats, three fish, one gerbil and a large number of bats in the attic.

By the same author:

Thrillers

The Mother (originally published as Picture of Innocence)

One in Three

Stolen

General Fiction

Hard News

Soft Focus

Pole Position

The Adultery Club

The Infidelity Chain (published in the US as One Good Affair)

The Nanny (previously published as The Cradle Snatcher; published in the US as Who Loves You Best)

What’s Yours Is Mine

The Wife Who Ran Away

The Lying Game

An Open Marriage

About the Publisher