Sam’s eyes darted to the next road sign and one word bored into his brain. South. He had run out of options. The traffic was carrying him along and he dug his fingernails into the steering wheel as he went with the flow.
He looked into his rear-view mirror and, for a split second, Ruby was there in the back seat. ‘People,’ she said. ‘Work to your strengths.’
Car horns blared and brakes screeched as Sam swerved and he just about managed to get to the outside lane and avoid the southbound exit. His heart was racing and beads of sweat pricked his brow, but when he saw the sign for Liverpool he released all his pent-up anxiety with a sigh of relief. He couldn’t wait to get home.
To my amazing, wonderful tree,
Your new leaves look very nice and I pologize now for the noise. I’ve tied Jasper to the railings and he keeps barking. He’s trying to squeeze his head through the bars but he’s big now and he’ll get his head stuck if he’s not careful. Then I’ll have to fetch Sam and he won’t trust me to take Jasper for a walk on my own again. He really does worry about me though he tries not to show it. He’s in the park now and I know he’s probly watching me. I’m not as daft as I look, that’s what Sam says.
Sam’s a full-time park ranger now and will be showing you off all the time. It looks like the wish I made at Christmas to get Sam a job worked, but maybe you could grant me just one more???
Soooo what I’d like is sort of for Sam and most definitely for Mum. The other night Sam was staying over and he was telling Mum that the lady he used to be married to is having a baby. He told Mum he was happy about it but I know he’s always going to be sad about Ruby and I am too. I think it would have been nice for her to be my stepsister when Mum and Sam get married, which course they will once Sam is brave enough to ask.
I also think he’s a bit jealous about this baby and it was soooo obvious that Mum wanted him to say something but he didn’t because he’s probly worrying that he doesn’t want to rush things, that’s what Natalie said to Mum, and Mum doesn’t want to push Sam, that’s what she said to Natalie, but I’d like a baby brother or sister before I turn into a teenager and decide I don’t like anyone any more, like Keira’s sister has.
I think a little baby will help everyone. Sam can tell his new baby all about Ruby, and I can tell him or her all about my dad, or the nice bits about him anyway. I do miss my dad but there are some things I don’t miss.
Jasper’s whining is hurting my ears now, so I’d better go. I’ll leave this note in the tree and I hope Sam doesn’t come along and find it!
I love you.
Jasmine xxx
Acknowledgements
The Allerton Oak is a real tree in Calderstones Park, Liverpool, and although the magical powers I ascribe to it are pure fiction, I must confess there came a point during the writing of this book when I wanted to believe it was true. I had been working on one of the final drafts when one of my closest friends became gravely ill, and I found myself beneath the thousand-year-old tree willing it to give her the strength to pull through and return home to her family. It brought me some comfort at the time, but ultimately the Wishing Tree’s powers failed.
This book is dedicated to Donna Hall for a very good reason. She was thoughtful, generous, kind-hearted, patient, and she certainly knew how to have a good time. She made friends easily, and not only kept them but shared them too. My life is richer for having known her and I’m privileged to have amazing support from the friends she brought together. My love and thoughts remain with John, Luke and Dylan Hall, and Tracy, Lee and Jonathan Wood.
As you can appreciate, it was tough finishing this novel and I would like to thank my editor, Martha Ashby, for her support, and for not putting pressure on me to meet deadlines even when I was putting that pressure on myself. Thank you to Kim Young and all the team at HarperCollins for your amazing support and making me the writer I am today. And thank you to my agent, Luigi Bonomi, who believed in me as a writer long before I ever believed in myself.
Thank you as always to my family and especially to my daughter Jessica, who has always, always been there when I needed her most.
Look out for Amanda’s next book, The Goodbye Gift
Three best friends. One tragic accident. One heart.
Click here to pre-order now 978-0-00-811653-8
If you enjoyed The Child’s Secret, you might enjoy The Missing Husband
He has a secret…
Jo is five months pregnant with the baby she always wanted, and on the surface she has the perfect marriage to David, the love of her life. The only thing marring her happiness is the secret she’s hiding from her husband.
She told a lie…
Then David disappears and there doesn’t seem to be any trace of him. Did the secrets inside his marriage chase him away? Or something much worse?
Would you rather know the whole truth or nothing at all?
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-751137-2
If you enjoyed The Child’s Secret, why not try Amanda’s other books:
Yesterday’s Sun – a Richard & Judy book club pick, Amanda’s debut asks how you choose between your own life and the life of your child
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-744591-2
Another Way to Fall – Emma’s long battle with cancer is drawing to a close, but as she starts to write the story of the life she always wanted to lead, the line between truth and reality starts to blur…
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-744593-6
Where I Found You – separated by decades, Maggie and Elsie face motherhood against the odds. But can Maggie help Elsie unravel the secrets of the past before it’s too late?
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-751135-8
The Keeper of Secrets – Elle’s perfect façade is hiding the cracks in her marriage. But what happens when a message from her past threatens to expose everything?
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-752218-7
If I Should Go – Rachel’s first chance at love in years forces her to consider what she could give up for love…
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-752228-6
Q & A
1. Tell us about the inspiration for this novel.
The inspiration behind The Child’s Secret came after hearing about the ‘Whispering Gallery,’ in New York’s Grand Central Station. Apparently two people can stand in opposite corners of an archway and the acoustics allow their whispers to be carried to each other. I began playing around with various ideas for a story where my main character could ‘listen in,’ to the innocent wishes of a young child, and then go on to fulfil them. It took a while to think up a story that really fired my imagination, and it wasn’t until I was standing in front of the Allerton Oak in Calderstones Park, Liverpool that it all came together. The Wishing Tree was born and it became the perfect device to connect my characters.
2. A missing child is surely most parents’ worst nightmare. How did you find dealing with such an emotionally fraught storyline?
I should think most parents have experienced that sickening feeling when you lose sight of your child, even for just a few moments. Your imagination runs wild as you go through countless scenarios but thankfully for most of us, there’s a swift resolution when the child in question reappears wondering what all the fuss was about. With The Child’s Secret, I had to take that situation so much further and describing those scenes with Laura and Finn was intense at times. It was tough trying to put myself in the position of a parent whose child is missing, and even as a bereaved parent with my own personal experience of loss, it was a challenge to imagine how they must feel.
3. As you wrote the book, how much did you want to play with reader’s perception of Sam, as a potential hero or villain?
I didn’t want to make Sam’s intentions clear from the outset, but there was more to it than simply playing with the reader’s perception of him. In the initial planning stages, I hadn’t intended for Sam to be a bereaved parent because it was his relationship with Jasmine that I was focu
sing on first and foremost. His past life became a way to explain both his hesitance to become involved in the little girl’s life, and also his strong desire to protect her. It also provided a reason for other characters to question his motives and here I was playing on what seems to be an all too common portrayal of bereaved parents as the villains. I’ve lost count of how many TV dramas I’ve seen where a parent’s loss has seemingly justified heinous crimes and I’ve always found this a little unfair. In my experience, bereaved parents are an incredible force for good and that’s why Sam was always going to be the good guy.
4. Do you think that fears for missing children are prevalent in our society? And with the rise of social media and the speed which information can change and distort, do you think this is true more so now than ever before?
We’re all more aware of the darker side of life these days and with historical cases of child abuse hitting the headlines on a regular basis, it’s natural for parents to have their fears heightened. I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing, it’s a small price to pay if such cases can be prevented or at least detected quickly. Social media and increased awareness has made it difficult for any parent to ignore the perceived dangers of child abduction and abuse, and because it’s impossible to quantify those risks, we’ve all become overcautious and children therefore have less freedom. Eight year old Jasmine wasn’t allowed to go to the park on her own and readers might even have thought it unwise for her to be allowed to go under the supervision of her friend’s sister. I grew up in the seventies so I was always going on treks to the park with my friends, but if my parents had known then what we know now, I’m pretty sure I would have had a completely different childhood.
5. The themes of your books tend to echo the shocking stories we read about in the newspapers and cause readers to think ‘there but for the grace of god…’ Do you think that’s an accurate description of your writing? And are the headlines sometimes a source for inspiration?
I think my latest books are moving in that direction and it’s a style of writing I’m thoroughly enjoying. My previous novel, The Missing Husband, was a perfect example of how I drew inspiration from the headlines because I came up with the idea while watching the evening news about a man who had been missing for twelve months. It’s human nature to want to peer into someone else’s life and be thankful that we’re not facing the same kind of trauma. It’s stories like The Child’s Secret that make us appreciate what we have and prompts us to hold those we love a little closer.
6. How did you find writing dual narratives, from an adult and a child’s perspective? Did you face any difficulties in creating these very different voices?
In the Child’s Secret, I tell the story from the view point of Sam, Laura and Jasmine and they were all very distinctive in my mind because of the difference in their ages, their sex and their characters. Sam’s voice was the strongest and most determined, while Laura’s was the quietest because she was so unsure of herself. I especially loved writing from Jasmine’s point of view because she had such an innocent and at times, simple view of the world. She was someone who still believed in wishes and it made me think what a shame it is that we have to stop believing in magic.
7. Did writing The Child’s Secret differ from your experience writing your previous novels? In what way?
The structure of this book was something that was completely new to me, having two separate timelines running concurrently. The story essentially starts when Sam meets Jasmine for the first time, but I open the novel on the day she goes missing and then look back at her past. The present day chapters threaded through the novel were a challenge because in those scenes all my characters knew each other very well. It took a lot of planning and during the rewrites I had to track very carefully who knew what and when, as well as deciding how much to reveal to the reader. There were times when my head throbbed as I tried to connect it all together, but I loved the end result and it’s a structure I’m planning on using again.
8. How do you plot out your novels when you’ve got an idea in your head?
It can take some time for that initial idea to evolve into a story with substance, but when I’m ready to commit it to paper, I’ll start by writing a synopsis. That outline will only be a couple of pages long and at that stage I won’t really have considered sub-plots or minor characters but I will have captured the essence of the story. My next task is to cut up the synopsis into about twelve sections which in theory will be the chapters and, if nothing else, it gives me some reassurance that I have enough of a story for a full length manuscript. When I’m ready to start writing the book, I tend to have a very clear idea of the opening and final scenes but the rest is still relatively fluid. I enjoy getting to know my characters and they’re the ones who fuel my imagination as I go along, creating situations and conflict I never could have imagined from the start.
9. What are you reading at the moment? And do you find it hard to read for pleasure when you’re in the middle of writing?
I’m currently reading the Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty and even though I’m really enjoying it, I know it will take me quite a while to finish the book. I work full time and writing fills much of my free time so unfortunately I tend to only find time to read last thing at night. My reading experience has most definitely changed since becoming an author because I’m more conscious of other writer’s styles, but I think that’s a good thing as it helps me develop my own writing.
10. Will you tell us a bit about your next book?
My next book is about three friends who are all going through intense periods of change. They each have a story to tell but one story is about to end abruptly and that’s where my novel begins. In the opening scene, I introduce a young girl called Lucy whose survival is dependent on a heart transplant. There’s been a devastating accident involving the three friends and someone is about to give Lucy a fighting chance for life.
Reading Group Questions
How did you feel about the ending? How did the accident leave you feeling about those involved?
Compare and contrast Sam and Finn’s differing approaches to fatherhood. Was Finn’s final heroic deed enough to forgive his failings as a father?
Discuss the way that Sam dealt with his grief.
What was your opinion of Laura? Do you think she should have done something sooner to protect Jasmine and herself?
If you had one wish, what would you ask the Wishing Tree for?
Was DCI Harper right to immediately direct suspicion towards Sam? Were you ready to believe a bereaved father was capable of abducting a child?
What do you think motivated Anna’s actions after her and Sam broke up?
Do you think Selina can be forgiven for her actions, both in the past and her involvement in Jasmine’s disappearance?
Discuss the role of the Wishing Tree as a device.
Out of all the complex characters, whose actions were the hardest/easiest to understand and why?
About the Author
Amanda Brooke is a single mum in her forties who lives in Liverpool with her daughter Jessica, two cats, and a laptop within easy reach. Her debut novel, Yesterday’s Sun, was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in spring 2012. The Child’s Secret is her fifth novel.
www.amanda-brooke.com
@AmandaBrookeAB
www.facebook.com/AmandaBrookeAuthor
Also by Amanda Brooke
Yesterday’s Sun
Another Way to Fall
Where I Found You
The Missing Husband
Ebook-only short stories
The Keeper of Secrets
If I Should Go
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th
Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London,SE1 9GF
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com
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