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Beth has no idea Kat isn’t who she says she is.

But then neither is Beth.

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The Ski Trip

THE PERFECT TRIP

When four friends embark on a boys’ skiing holiday in the Alps, they anticipate a weekend of fun, drinking, and some healthy competition on the slopes. But their trip is cut short when one of them falls to his death.

A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT …

Tom’s widow, Zoe, travels to France with her friend Ivy to collect his body. While Zoe is consumed by grief, Ivy starts to question everything.

OR COLD-BLOODED MURDER?

The slope Tom fell from wasn’t dangerous, and tensions between the group were at breaking point in the days before his death.

But if Ivy’s suspicions are correct, Tom was killed by one of his closest friends. And they are still in the chalet …

‘An absolute masterpiece of mystery and suspense’ Reader reviewer,

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Acknowledgements

I grew up in a village near Thame and went to a school called ‘Lord Bill’s’, so it feels apt that my first thank you is to my sixth-form English teacher, Mr Foulkes (sadly no longer with us). He was a great man with a contagious love of literature, who was less surprised by my top grade than I was. Chinnor is a real village in the Chilterns and most of the descriptions I write are accurate, but I did give myself a little creative licence. There is no way of sneaking into the storage area for disused train carriages (that I know of), and I made up a few additional off-road routes between locations. I’m sure there are other inaccuracies too (like girls being murdered on the Ridgeway, for one) and I apologise for those. Chinnor is a lovely, thriving village – and I’m sure not nearly as gossipy as I make out! A big thank you to my mum for chauffeuring me around the area as I plotted routes and scenes – at least I didn’t ask you to join my muddy hike on the misty Ridgeway.

A lot of my initial research focused on the foster care system and social work in general. A big thank you to Elaine Knight who has worked in foster care for many years, and gave me invaluable advice in the early stages of planning The Night She Dies. Thank you also to Hugh Constant, another experienced social worker, for all your help in building a credible career for Rachel. In the interests of story-telling, I have stretched the truth in both areas, but I hope not enough to make either of you wince. Thank you to the now former Inspector Simon Stone for sitting with me for hours to answer my many, many questions on police procedure – at least we did it with a beer in hand. I am very lucky to have a police expert on speed dial, and I appreciate all the effort you put in to making sure your answers are accurate. Any mistakes are mine.

The Night She Dies covers some sensitive topics, and I hope I do them justice. For two years during the pandemic, I worked as a Digital Volunteer for the eating disorder charity Beat (beateatingdisorders.org.uk). I learned a lot from talking online with sufferers and carers, and I hope this is reflected in the book. As a mother of teenagers, I am aware of the different challenges teenagers face. I wanted to shine a light on some of these, without judging or purporting to have the answers. I hope I have achieved this, and I apologise if any elements don’t quite hit the mark.

Thank you also to everyone at HQ. To Becci and Caroline for your PR and marketing support. To Seema for answering my many queries, to Helena Newton for your eagle eye, and to my lovely editor Cicely Aspinall. This is the fourth book we’ve worked on together, and I feel very lucky to have you in my corner – both for your frankly magical editing skills, and your calm and enduring positivity. Thank you also to Sophie Hicks for the part you’ve played in bringing The Night She Dies to life.

I wrote this book while launching The Ski Trip. I had a new level of support for this book, from authors, festivals, book bloggers and reading groups and I am so grateful to everyone who took the time to read, review, and shout about the book. A particular thanks to Adele Parks for including The Ski Trip as a Book Club pick in Platinum magazine, to Bookscape Books for choosing it for their book club, and to Bob McDevitt at Bloody Scotland for inviting me to talk about it.

Support from fellow authors is one of the best things about this job. A special thank you to Diane Jeffrey for reading an early copy of The Night She Dies – your suggestions were invaluable. And thank you to all the authors who are at the other end of a WhatsApp message, or plea to meet for coffee, especially Catherine Cooper, Lucy Martin, Jac Sutherland, Alex Chaudhuri, Sarah Naughton, Katy Brent, Joy Kluver, and Sophie Flynn. Thank you to all my friends and family for heroing my books – and for coming to my first book launch, possibly lured there by toffee vodka! A special thanks to my dad, always my first reader, and to Hannah for being all-round awesome.

I still get such a huge buzz from knowing that strangers are picking up my books and investing their time in my characters and story. It is an honour to be an author, and it is readers who make the job possible, so thank you to everyone who has bought or borrowed my books, and a particular thank you to those who have taken the time to write a review, and to recommend my books to others.

And finally, my family. Thank you, Finn, for your Snapchat expertise, and Chris, for keeping me functioning. And thank you, Scarlett. My now 19-year-old who is venturing out into the world. So far, so good.

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