The Third Wife (35 page)
He kissed Abby hard on each cheek, inhaling the unfamiliar, giddying smell of her, basking one last time in her golden aura, and then he left. As the door closed behind him, so did the memory of a weaker man than him.
He turned the corner and he headed home.
This book was conceived, written and rewritten almost entirely alone. Every time I tried to explain what it was about, people would look at me strangely and say: Oh. Right. So I stopped talking about it, shut all the blinds and just got on with it.
So my thanks really must go to Adrian, Maya, and the rest of the fictional Wolfe family for making me care about them so much that I was compelled to keep going until I’d found a story good enough for them.
And, back in the Real World, a huge thank you to my wonderful editor Selina Walker for writing me “that” blurb when I was nearly at the end which allowed me finally to see the book I had been writing and make sense of it all. Thanks also to all the magnificent team at Arrow; to Jen and Najma and Beth and Sarah and Jenny and Susan and Richard. And thank you to Richenda Todd for the top-notch copy edit.
Thanks to Jonny Geller and everyone at Curtis Brown. And in the US, thanks to Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider. I am so lucky to be represented by the best in the business both sides of the pond.
Thanks to all at Atria, my US publishers. Especial thanks to Sarah Branham, Ariele Friedman and Daniella Wexler.
And, closer to home, thanks to Jenny, Jojo, Mike, Jascha, Sacha, Tanya, Grace, Nic, Yasmin and Sarah who are always there to talk writing even though they don’t get paid for it.
Lastly, Amelie and Evie, my girls, who don’t help me write books in any way. But they do provide a very helpful counterpoint to the process. And they’re really lovely. Thank you.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446429228
Published by Century 2014
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Copyright © Lisa Jewell 2014
Lisa Jewell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Century
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781846059254 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781780892467 (Trade Paperback)
