by Paula Daly
Verity’s dad, meanwhile, was officially dating. He’d been doing it in an unofficial capacity for a couple of months, but there was a kind of unspoken agreement between Ewan, Verity and Brontë – Dale, too – whereby they didn’t mention Joanne Aspinall’s name outside of the house. People might get the wrong idea. Joanne came for dinner twice a week. She didn’t have a key. Never stayed over. And never kissed her dad in front of any of them.
Verity was pretty sure they were having sex. But she appreciated the fact that they were being discreet about it all the same.
Verity wondered if Joanne would move in eventually. She wouldn’t mind if she did. Joanne had a calmness about her that Verity appreciated after the tumultuous years she’d spent living with Karen.
Perhaps Verity would mention it to her dad. Tell him it was okay by her.
Yes, she decided. When he returned home later that evening, that’s exactly what she would do.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to the fantastic editors who worked so hard on this book: Frankie Gray and Sarah Day at Transworld, Corinna Barsan at Grove Atlantic, Zoe Maslow at Doubleday Canada and Stephanie Glencross at Gregory and Company.
Thanks to my early readers: Debbie Leatherbarrow, James Long, Zoe Lea, Lucy Hay. To Katharine Hamel for tea and chats about horrible mothers. And to my marvellous agent, Jane Gregory, as well as the lovely team at Gregory and Co.
Lastly, the following books were immensely helpful when writing The Trophy Child: Forensics by Val McDermid, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua and Beyond the Tiger Mom by Maya Thiagarajan.
Paula Daly lives in Cumbria with her husband, three children and whippet Skippy. Before becoming a writer she was a freelance physiotherapist.
