[Mitford Murders 03] - The Mitford Scandal

by Jessica Fellowes

  I cannot write these books without the expertise and generous advice of Sue Collins, Celestria Noel and David Strang. All mistakes that remain are, of course, entirely my own. I am also very grateful to Mindy Stubbs and Lucie Dutton for personal insights into the life of Diana.

  As ever, I am always, daily, grateful for the warm support of the brilliant Sphere team at Little, Brown. Thank you, Ed Wood for your guidance and inspiration. To Steph Melrose, Gemma Shelley and Laura Vile for getting this series noticed, to Andy Hine and Kate Hibbert for their amazing work selling the series all around the world. And to Catherine Burke and Charlie King for steering the huge ship that sees our books reach land – and readers – safely through the publishing storms!

  A huge, Flat Iron-sized thank you to Catherine Richardson and the wonderful Minotaur team at St Martin’s Press, as well as Hope Dellon, whose influence never leaves me, and Sally Richards for all her warm encouragement across the pond.

  Thank you to my glorious agent, Caroline Michel of PFD, and her tireless assistant Laurie Robertson.

  Finally, for my family. I do it for you but I couldn’t do it without you and your loving support, your creativity and, most of all, your terrific sense of the absurd. Thank you, my darling Simon, Beatrix, Louis, George and Zola.

  Help us make the next

  generation of readers

  We – both author and publisher – hope you enjoyed this book. We believe that you can become a reader at any time in your life, but we’d love your help to give the next generation a head start.

  Did you know that 9% of children don’t have a book of their own in their home, rising to 12% in disadvantaged families*? We’d like to try to change that by asking you to consider the role you could play in helping to build readers of the future.

  We’d love you to think of sharing, borrowing, reading, buying or talking about a book with a child in your life and spreading the love of reading. We want to make sure the next generation continue to have access to books, wherever they come from.

  And if you would like to consider donating to charities that help fund literacy projects, find out more at www.literacytrust.org.uk and www.booktrust.org.uk.

  Thank you.

  *As reported by the National Literacy Trust