by Dani Atkins
I knew next to nothing about the work of a florist, but thankfully Karen Huseyin, the owner of my local florist shop, generously gave up her time to explain a little about the workings of her business and even allowed me to borrow the name of her shop (yes, there really is a Crazy Daisy).
Another professional I am deeply indebted to is Lucy Richardson, an embryologist and Laboratory Director at Herts & Essex Fertility Centre. During one extremely long and informative phone call, Lucy explained to me about the workings of a lab in a fertility clinic and also about the duties of an embryologist. I think it’s safe to say she sounded fairly horrified when I told her the plot of the book. ‘It’s my job to make sure that kind of thing never happens,’ she told me, to which I replied ‘And it’s mine to pretend that it did!’ What I did learn was that the dreadful situation Beth and Izzy find themselves in would be virtually unheard of these days with clinics utilising technology such as electronic doubling witnessing to ensure that mistakes like the one in A Million Dreams stay firmly within the pages of a book.
No acknowledgement would be complete without giving a heartfelt thank you to the book bloggers who do such an amazing job in supporting authors and our books. Like most unsung heroes, most of your incredible work is behind the scenes and never receives the praise it deserves, but please don’t ever think it goes unnoticed or is not appreciated.
I’ve met so many lovely people in the world of publishing who I now feel lucky enough to call good friends. From our ‘office Christmas lunch’ to ‘summer works outing’ I’m grateful for the friendship, laughter, and support from a group of amazing women. Thank you, Kate Thompson, Sasha Wagstaff, Faith Bleasdale and Fiona Ford. None of this would be as much fun without you.
To all the other authors and publishing folk who’ve made writing down thoughts from my head the most enjoyable and sociable career – I am lucky to have met you all. Thanks to my lunch buddy Paige Toon, and to Kate Riordan, Isabelle Broom, Holly Hepburn, Catherine Isaac, Penny Parkes, Juliet Ashton, Heidi Swain, Kate Furnival, Alice Peterson, Milly Johnson, Julie Cohen, Jenny Colgan, Gill Paul, Louise Candlish and last (but never least) Sara-Jade Virtue.
Thanks also to my first readers Hazel and Debbie (who never asked for the job, but were given it anyway). And thanks too to the friends who’ve been in my life for decades, or have only just arrived: Annette, Christine, Sheila, Kim, Mary, Barb and Heidi.
And lastly to my loving and (let’s be honest here) long-suffering family. You make this possible and I probably don’t thank you enough for that…so I’m doing it now.
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