Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly - Страница 40

Please forgive me in advance for whoever I leave out because I just know I’ll leave someone out. People ask what’s the hardest thing about writing a book and I always say it’s this bit, because when you’ve put your heart and soul into a novel, you desperately want to remember to thank all the lovely people who’ve helped you in some way during the writing of it or during the last few books. I tend to think of whom to thank when I’m at the traffic lights in the car and can’t write it down. I subsequently forget this vital bit of information in the same way I go into the supermarket to buy milk and come out with four bulging bags of shopping – and no milk. So here goes:

Thanks to my darling John for all your love and encouragement; thanks to my family for being so supportive, to Mum for all the endless things you do; to dear Lucy for being Rupert, to Francis for always being there on the phone to cheer me up, to Anne, little Laura, Naomi and Emer, to Dave and St Lucia, and to my beloved Tamsin who brings sunshine into my day and who appears in this book (thinly disguised).

To Ali Gunn, sweetie, the best agent in the world and the woman who understands that the phone isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life. To Deborah Schneider with much gratitude, to Diana, Carol and all at Curtis Brown. To Sarah Hamilton for encouragement, understanding and lovely gossip, to Rachel Hore for gently and expertly doing wonderful things with this book, practically into the maternity ward with baby Leo. Thank you to my wonderful new family at HarperCollins, especially dear Anne O’Brien, Nick Sayers, Adrian Bourne, Eddie Bell, Fiona McIntosh, David North, Martin Palmer, Jane Harris, Phyllis Acolatse, Terence Caven, Jennifer Parr, Lee Motley, Venetia, Moira, Tony…just all of you for being so good to me and risking death by hanging those big posters in the atrium! I appreciate it. Thanks to my Irish family, Poolbeg, especially Paul Campbell, Lucy, Suzanne, Philip, Kieran, Conor for all your support, fantastic work and those deadly Poolbeg cocktails.

For advice and support for all sorts of different things thanks to Susan Zaidan, Lola Simpson, Barbara Stack, Lisa Lynch, Patricia Scanlan, Marian Keyes, Kate Thompson, dear Clare Foss, Mairead, Margaret, Esther, all my friends for their help and encouragement, especially all at Sunday World.

To the staff at the Animal Welfare Clinic for allowing me to spend some time with them and all their patients, especially to John Hardy, Paul, Grainne, Vanessa, Pamela, Tracy, Juliana and anybody else I’m leaving out. Thanks to Aisling O Buachalla from Sherry FitzGerald for letting me in on the secrets of working as an estate agent. Any mistakes about either being a vet nurse or an estate agent are all mine – probably due to me not being able to read my own shorthand after the event (not unusual).

Thanks to the incredible staff at the Kylemore Nursing Home who looked after my father when he was dying with Alzheimer’s and who managed, through a combination of professionalism, compassion and humour, to make that last year a time full of good memories.

Thanks to the booksellers who work so hard selling my books, who have to keep up to date with the phenomenal volume of novels coming out every month, and who are the only people I know who can have wonderful times at parties, drink wine and still have intelligent conversations about the new books they’re dying to get their hands on. Thanks to you, the people who buy my books and give me such a thrill when you write and say you like them. Without you, none of this would have happened. So thanks.