False Hope
Page 27
So supremely confident. So untroubled by doubt. Not a single scintilla of it. Which is exactly as it should be.
I look at Matt, who has a length of wood in one hand, a bolt in the other, his beanie on his head, and the bit between his teeth.
And then up, squinting a little against the watery February sunshine. It’s fine. It will be fine. The sky hasn’t fallen in.
And, before we know it, the wisteria will be in bloom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As ever, I cannot sign off without saying some thank yous. To my wonderful agent, Andrew Lownie, with whom I’ve sailed away on so many and so diverse a bunch of writing adventures. Here’s to the next, wherever it may take us!
To Jack Butler and Jane Snelgrove, such fabulous editors, and the whole team at Thomas & Mercer. You’re the best. Professional, indefatigable, and unfailingly helpful . . . are just three of the adjectives that you deserve to be adorned with, were the crime of peppering prose with strings of three adjectives not one of the creative ‘don’ts’ I hold most dear. Seriously, though, it’s been a joy.
To my one-in-a-million husband, Pete, and to the National Health Service (which, as a consequence of hooking up with a punky medical student some forty-three years back, I’ve been pretty much married to all this time as well).
To my lovely son Joe, who, like Grace, is an orthopaedic surgeon, and has patiently sat through endless technical questions. If I got something wrong, the fault is 100 per cent mine.
And, at the risk of repeating myself, to my family. Writing about such tragically dysfunctional ones for a living cannot help but remind me how lucky Pete and I are. You are all AMAZING, and I love you a googolplex. Which Google tells me (in case you’re wondering, which I know you all are) is a one followed by a googol of zeros. Which makes it larger than the number of atoms in the entire universe. Which makes it just about the right amount.
Well, almost.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynne Lee was born in London and began her writing career as a teenager. She has been a full-time author since the mid-1990s, writing romantic novels, short stories and ghostwriting bestselling books. False Hope is her second psychological thriller and is written under a pseudonym. Find her online at www.lynnebarrett-lee.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LynneLeeAuthor/ and on Instagram @lynnebl.