by Lisa Jewell
The policewoman looks up at her and the woman can see that her eyes are wet with tears. “Yes,” says the policewoman. “It is.”
Both of them let their eyes fall back to the letter then and they both fall silent as they reread it together, squinting to make out the minuscule words squashed tightly side by side on a tiny scrap of paper:
To anyone who finds this note [it begins], my name is Ellie Mack.
I am seventeen. Noelle Donnelly brought me to her house on 26 May 2005 and has kept me captive in her basement for about a year and a half. I have had a baby. I don’t know who the father is and I’m pretty sure I’m still a virgin. Her name is Poppy. She was born in around April 2006. I don’t know where she is now or who is looking after her but please, please find her if you can. Please find her and look after her and tell her that I loved her. Tell her that I looked after her for as long as I could and that she was the best little baby in the world. Also, please let my family know that you’ve found this note. My mum is called Laurel Mack and my dad is called Paul and I have a brother called Jake and a sister called Hanna and I want you to tell them all that I’m sorry and that I love them more than anything in the world and that none of them must feel bad about what happened to me because I am brave and I am brilliant and I am strong.
Yours sincerely,
Ellie Mack
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I finished writing this book in December 2016. I read it through and thought, hmm, this is either brilliantly bizarre, or just bizarre. I’d lost all objectivity and passed it to my editor with no worldly clue how she would respond.
A few days later she said, let’s meet up, I have a radical suggestion. I knew then that my book was simply bizarre.
She said that she and another editor had spent ages together brainstorming my book, trying to find a way to balance out the bizarreness. And they’d had a light-bulb moment. And her suggestion was indeed radical.
I said, yes, yes, of course. That’s brilliant, you’re brilliant. Thank you!
And now I’d like to say thank you again to Selina Walker and Viola Hayden for being brave and clear-minded, for sitting together with my bizarre pile of paper and talking and thinking and talking and thinking and seeing exactly what needed to be done and then telling me exactly how to do it. People might think that writers are possessive of their work, think that no one but them can possibly know how it should be. But a sensible writer knows that’s not true. Sometimes the writer is the least able to see the solution and sometimes the editors are the geniuses. And this was definitely the case with this book. So thank you both again. I am so grateful to you.
And thank you, of course, to everyone else at Arrow: to Susan Sandon, Gemma Bareham, Celeste Ward-Best, Aslan Byrne, and everyone in the sales team.
Thank you to my agent Jonny Geller for being so enthusiastic about this book. And thank you to the rest of the team at Curtis Brown for everything you do to support me in my career. You’re all brilliant.
Thank you to my wonderful publishing team in the US, where, thanks to all your love and hard work, my career is going from strength to strength. Thank you, Judith Curr, Sarah Cantin, Ariele Fredman, Lisa Sciambra, and Haley Weaver. Finally getting to meet you all last year was beyond special. You’re even better in real life!
And thank you to Deborah Schneider, my American agent (and birthday twin!). You’ve worked so hard on my behalf for so long and it was incredible to spend some time face-to-face with you in London last year after nearly a decade of emailing. You are amazing.
Thank you to all my foreign publishers. I am so grateful to be published so widely and so beautifully by so many incredible teams of people around the world. Thanks especially to Pia Printz in Sweden, for not only publishing me so beautifully, but for inviting me into your world, taking me for dinner, and keeping me up way past my bedtime! Thanks also to Anna, Frida, and Christoffer. You’re all so lovely.
Thank you to the booksellers, the librarians, and the book buyers and to all the people who help get my books to the readers. And thanks to all the amazing book bloggers out there. Thanks for the reviews and the posts and the photos and the tweets. I love you all! Thanks in particular to Tracy Fenton of the utterly legendary The Book Club on Facebook. What a powerhouse you are, and such a boon for readers and writers alike.
Thank you to my splendid family and friends. I am blessed with a high-quality abundance of both. And special thanks to the ones on the Board. We just get better with age!
But mostly, thank you to my readers, new ones and old ones, loyal or occasional. I am so grateful to you all for spending your hard-earned money on stuff I’ve written and allowing me to keep on writing more stuff. You are all amazing.
A NOTE ON THE CHARACTER NAME OF “SARA-JADE VIRTUE”
* * *
The name “Sara-Jade Virtue” was given to me by a real-life Sara-Jade Virtue, the winner of last year’s Get In Character auction, which raises money for the UK charity CLIC Sargent. Incidentally, Sara-Jade is one of the greatest, most passionate, and influential people currently working in British publishing, and I was super-proud to use her name.
CLIC Sargent’s mission is to change what it means to be diagnosed with cancer when you’re young. They believe that children and young people with cancer have the right to the best possible treatment, care, and support, throughout their cancer journey and beyond. And they deserve the best possible chance to make the most of their lives once cancer treatment has ended.
www.clicsargent.org.uk
For more from New York Times bestseller Lisa Jewell . . .
An irresistible novel about the pain of drifting apart and the power of starting over.
After the Party
* * *
A delightfully funny, beautifully poignant novel about three strangers and the family secret that pulls them all together.
The Making of Us
* * *
A young woman works to uncover the secrets of her grandmother's past to track down a mysterious unknown beneficiary following her grandmother's passing.
Before I Met You
* * *
A captivating New York Times bestselling novel about the tragedies that tear families apart, and the persistent desire to regain the peace of the past.
The House We Grew Up In
* * *
A gripping suspense that unravels the complexities of one family's dynamics following the sudden death of a successful architect's third wife.
The Third Wife
* * *
When a young girl is found unconscious during a summer garden party, what dark secrets are plaguing this picturesque neighborhood?
The Girls in the Garden
* * *
Two women, twenty years of secrets, and a man whose lost memory holds the key to unraveling it all . . .
I Found You
* * *
ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LISA JEWELL was born and raised in north London, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. She is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of twelve novels, including The House We Grew Up In, The Girls in the Garden, and I Found You. To find out more, visit Facebook.com/LisaJewellOfficial, or follow her on Twitter @LisaJewellUK.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
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Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Lisa-Jewell
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ALSO BY LISA JEWELL
I Found You
The Girls in the Garden
The Third Wife
The House We Grew Up In
Before I Met You
The Making of Us
After the Party
The Truth About Melody Browne
31 Dream Street
A Friend of the Family
Vince & Joy
One-Hit Wonder
Thirtynothing
Ralph�
�s Party
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Jewell
Originally published in Great Britain in 2017 by Century
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First Atria Books hardcover edition April 2018
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Jacket design by Laywan Kwan
Jacket photograph of branches by Plainpicture/Michael Dooney
Photograph of petals by Getty Images
Author photograph by Jascha Gordon
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jewell, Lisa, author.
Title: Then she was gone : a novel / Lisa Jewell.
Description: First Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Atria Books, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017032784 (print) | LCCN 2017039921 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501154669 (eBook) | ISBN 9781501154645 (hardback)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Family Life. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6060.E95 (ebook) | LCC PR6060.E95 T48 2018 (print) | DDC 823/.914—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032784
ISBN 978-1-5011-5464-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-5466-9 (ebook)