Thank you to my lovely beta readers Julie Carey and Terry Harden, whose feedback and typo-spotting is invaluable. Thank you to Fraser Crichton for your superb copyedits. And to Lauren Finger for being a proofreading ninja.

Thanks to everyone in the Bookouture Authors’ Lounge – a safe space where we can rant and support and have a laugh. I’d also like to mention the support of several author and reader groups I belong to: The Book Club, Book Connectors, The Fiction Café Book Club and UK Crime Book Club, who always support authors and help spread the word. Their members are wonderful people who I feel privileged to have met. Thank you, guys!

Thanks to my wonderful kids Dan and Billie. You make me so proud it hurts.

And to all my readers and reviewers, to all the bloggers and tweeters, recommenders and online sharers, love and thanks always.

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We – both author and publisher – hope you enjoyed this book. We believe that you can become a reader at any time in your life, but we’d love your help to give the next generation a head start.

Did you know that 9% of children don’t have a book of their own in their home, rising to 13% in disadvantaged families*? We’d like to try to change that by asking you to consider the role you could play in helping to build readers of the future.

We’d love you to get involved by sharing, borrowing, reading, buying or talking about a book with a child in your life and spreading the love of reading. We want to make sure the next generation continues to have access to books, wherever they come from.

Click HERE for a list of brilliant books to share with a child – as voted by Goodreads readers.

Thank you.

*As reported by the National Literacy Trust