With some reluctance, she dug in her bag and produced it. Just as she handed it to him, it pinged with the new mail tone. He stared at it for some moments, then grinned broadly. ‘Well, look at this!’

‘What is it?’ she asked, suspiciously.

‘It’s an automated email from the chateau!’

‘What?’

‘From the wonderful Château-sur-L’Évêque! Asking if we’ve enjoyed our stay!’

‘You are joking?’

Roy held the phone up and Cleo read the message aloud. ‘The Vicomte and Vicomtesse du Carne de Chabrolais hope you have enjoyed your recent stay in our beautiful Château-sur-L’Évêque. We would be deeply obliged if you were to place your favourable comments in a review on TripAdvisor.’

She handed the phone back to Roy and he read the message again himself. Then he gave her a playful look. ‘Any thoughts?’

She rocked her head to one side, then the other. ‘Um. Nothing’s immediately jumping out at me. You?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve got it. I know what to write.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Visit the beautiful Château-sur-L’Évêque. Enjoy its isolation, its wonderful hospitality. Truly, you will have . . . the holiday to die for!’

Acknowledgements

Writing any book involves a huge amount of teamwork, including those who help me with my research, with editing, the cover design, the marketing, the social media and so much more, and I’ve been blessed over the years to have the support of so many talented people.

First and foremost a huge thank you to Jojo Moyes, for her foresight and immense generosity in keeping the Quick Reads programme alive. These novellas play such a vital role in encouraging so many people who are either reading books for the first time or who have struggled or had lost the reading habit. And a huge thanks to Fanny Blake, my brilliant former editor at Penguin Signet – a few years back (!) – for twisting my arm to do this book, which has been a blast.

Those research helpers I would particularly like to single out on this novella are: Julian Blazeby, Connor Costen, Sean Didcott, Claire Horne, Manon Jones and Dr Adrian Noon.

Thank you also to my brilliant Team James readers, Sue Ansell, Martin Diplock, Jane Diplock, Anna-Lisa Hancock, James Hodge and Helen Shenston. To my agent, Isobel Dixon, Sian Ellis-Martin and all at Blake Friedmann, and to my publishers, Pan Macmillan, with a special mention to those who worked on this novella, Wayne Brookes, Samantha Fletcher, Alex Saunders, Lindsay Nash and Neil Lang. Huge thanks also to my publicists at Riot, Preena Gadher, Caitlin Allen and Emily Souders.

The inspiration for this story came from a hotel in central France that Lara and I stayed a night in a couple of years ago. The hotel was very much as I have described, incredibly creepy and old-fashioned, almost deserted and distinctly sinister – we really did think at one point we were going to end up murdered . . .