My heartfelt gratitude to every single person who helped me along the way with this novel, and, as always, I apologise profusely if I miss someone in the following acknowledgements. First, a gigantic thank you to my wonderful friend Sabeeha Toynton. Sabeeha was kind enough to give me hours of her time, answering my questions about her expertise as a paramedic and even reading a full draft of the book to check my work. Any mistakes are entirely my own fault and would have been introduced after she read it. I’m also lucky enough to have an amazing group of friends that happens to include a firefighter, several nurses, a high school teacher and a police officer. This comes in quite handy with most of my writing. Thank you to Mark Zullo, Kristen Zullo, Kerry Lockwood, Brooke Macdonald, Alex Wilson and Andy Lyttle for all being so patient with me when I ask inane questions about seemingly random things such as ‘Can I set this on fire?’ or ‘What injury would put me in a coma but I want to survive please.’ Thank you to my family GP, Doctor Vilkins, who looked slightly bemused at the end of an appointment when I suddenly asked, ‘If I was a man who wanted to donate sperm, what questions would you ask me?’

As always, I am extremely grateful to the huge team of people behind the scenes, including but not limited to, my extraordinary publisher and gorgeous friend Anna Valdinger along with everyone else at HarperCollins Australia, including Dianne Blacklock, Jordan Weaver-Keeney and Belinda Yuille; as well as my equally extraordinary UK publisher, Maxine Hitchcock and everyone else at Penguin Michael Joseph, including Rebecca Hilsdon and Clare Bowron. Further gratitude to my agents, the excellent Sheila Crowley at Curtis Brown UK, the lovely Stacy Testa at Writers House US and of course my fabulous friend who has been with me since day one, Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown Australia. My books would not exist without any of you.

I’m also very appreciative of Pamela Allen’s kindness in allowing me to quote her beautiful book, Who Sank the Boat. When I first came up with the original concept for this book, I would lie awake at night, wondering which character would end up being the one to have caused the car accident. As I lay there trying to work it out, I would mutter to myself, ‘Who sank the boat?’

As always, thank you to Pete and Leesa at Mini Espresso Bar, who are kind enough to provide me with delicious food, amazing coffee, great conversation, a place to sit and write for hours on end and also several character names, including their own.