Everything Has Changed

by kendra Smith

  I’m nodding slowly. ‘And do you believe that I love myself now?’ I tilt my head and look up at him.

  He walks his fingers down from both my shoulders slowly, then grips my hands tight in his and pulls me in towards him. ‘Yes,’ he whispers in my ear, as I feel his breath and his rough skin next to my cheek, ‘I do.’ Then he stands back and grins, cocks his head to one side as if he’s heard something. ‘Will you dance? Because I think you’ll like this.’ And he squeezes my hand, and pulls me towards the dancefloor as I hear The Killers starting up – and I simply laugh, running alongside him. It’s all I can do. I can’t speak, because I’m just too happy.

  If you enjoyed EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED then you will love A YEAR OF SECOND CHANCES, one of Kendra Smith’s fantastic and heartwarming novels!

  Acknowledgments

  Writing this novel has allowed me to provide an over-arching tip for any writer: do not agree to write a book over three lockdowns with four males in the house and a new puppy. With a 90,000 word novel deadline looming I would turn a blind eye as the teens ‘trained’ the puppy to ‘high five’ – as well as other questionable canine party tricks.

  And now for the serious bit. I had a head-on car crash a couple of years ago and it changed me. My psych review said that was normal. That people who have a ‘life altering’ event – especially at a younger age (I’ll take that, doc, thanks) feel different afterwards, after say a stroke, a heart attack or car crash; they feel more vulnerable. Hell, yes. And sometimes I feel stronger. And sometimes not.

  In writing this book I wanted to explore how much of an impact these things can have – the ripple effect. You witness the stone fall into the water, burst the surface tension of those molecules. What’s less obvious are the concentric rings spinning out from that one single event. How much do people change? What kind of trigger could it be? I played with that idea, as authors do. Could it change your personality? Yes. Your memory might go. That too. Long-buried frailties from the past might surface. Absolutely.

  For Victoria and Lulu, the car crash triggered different things – an avalanche of consequences for our two heroines which they had to deal with. And I hope you’ve enjoyed reading their journey.

  On a more practical note, I’ve put some distance between the accident and this book in order to write it. I have applied some fictional leeway with my heroine who had a brain injury and amnesia. I feel qualified to poke fun (only in the pages of my novels) as I have had first-hand experience of a trauma, of MRI scans, and of the scary world of PTSD. My heroine pulls through and she questions who she really was, so for her it’s a positive experience. You don’t really want to know about the nitty gritty of real-life, the actual legalities, and so on. That’s why you’re reading fiction, and that’s because I’m trying to do my job. So apologies if there are any factual inaccuracies, because they are all mine, for the purpose of the story. However, I am grateful to Jenny O’Brien for reading through the trauma and amnesia sections and pointing me in the right direction.

  * * *

  Thanks too to Aidan and Karen Murray (again!) for checking over Markie’s Irish sayings to make sure they were ‘on point’.

  Thanks also to my lovely goddaughter Maddie Turner for checking over Izzy’s teen dialogue in parts of the book.

  A big thank you to my gorgeous family – warts, puppy-training techniques and all. It’s through the pages of these books that my gratitude shows, in rejoicing the meaning of family. I hope you can see that.

  Thanks too to the DWLC – to Adrienne Dines, Claire Dyer, Kerry Fisher and Alison Sherlock for moral, email and emotional support and encouragement for all things writerly and beyond.

  The first chapter of this book was also shortlisted for the Elizabeth Goudge award by the RNA. That was a real boost! Thanks to Alison May, chair of the RNA at the time for all her input; and to the whole RNA ‘family’ out there.

  And a huge thanks to my editor, Hannah Todd, for enjoying my novel and making superb suggestions which have (I hope) only made it better. Thanks to the whole team at Aria for producing this book – and to the cover designer Leah Jacobs Gordon, I love it!

  And lastly, thanks to the bloggers, reviewers and of course to you, the readers.

  By Kendra Smith

  A Year of Second Chances

  The Chance of a Lifetime

  Take a Look at Me Now

  Everything Has Changed

  About the Author

  Kendra Smith was born in Singapore but educated at boarding school in Scotland and then at university in Aberdeen. Her list of achievements range from being an aerobics teacher in the Nineties, climbing the highest mountain in South-East Asia, working in women’s magazines (including OK! in London, at the BBC, and Cosmopolitan in Sydney). She currently lives in Surrey and spends her time looking for odd socks or chewed tennis balls – and other random duties associated with being the mother of three boys and a Springerdoodle.

  With dual British-Australian nationality, she has lived and worked in both Sydney and London. She has been a writer and journalist for over twenty years. She now writes contemporary women’s fiction and this is her fourth novel. Kendra can move from keyboard to cooker with ease. She can rustle up a 100,000-word novel, but finds it hard not to burn boiled eggs. Find her on Twitter @KendraAuthor or on Facebook @kendrasmithauthor.