Strange Ways
Page 36
‘That’s not going to happen. What happened here it… it made me think about things. I was fucked up, I know that. I wanted to hurt. Then I saw that girl again and… it got more complicated. But I’m better for it. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I do know that I’m going to surround myself with good people again. And that starts with you, if you’ll have me back.’
‘I’m not going to work with you.’
‘I’m not asking you to. I just want you to be my daughter. Because I sorely want to be your mother again.’
‘Then let’s start there.’ Michaela squeezed her hard around the middle. It made Amanda wince. It was pain, but the thing about pain wasn’t that it was there, it was about how you carried it.
Acknowledgements
An idea might spring up from nowhere, but a book certainly doesn’t. I’m so grateful to a lot of people for turning a weird thought I had while leaving the cinema into something a lot more than it started out as.
Thanks to the team at Canelo: Elizabeth Jenner and Craig Lye for their enthusiasm and support, Jade Craddock for asking all the right questions and Kim Bishop for making my answers sound sensible. Francesca Riccardi, Claudine Sagoe and Sophie Eminson have worked so hard to spread the book far and wide and I’m so grateful for everything they’ve done. Micaela Cavaletto performed the sufficiently advanced science / magic that turned all my words into a book, I still don’t understand how you do that. Tom Sanderson pulled it out of the bag (again!) and delivered an absolutely amazing front cover. I love it!
I also have to thank Mim Skinner, who looked over early drafts of some of the scenes and told me how women’s prisons actually work. Any mistakes in those chapters are entirely mine and you should check out her book Jail Birds, which is incredible.
Juliet Mushens made all this happen. She believed in my writing and always knows what to say, what to change, and I’m still completely gobsmacked that I have her as an agent.
My family continue to be a delight, more so in these days of lockdown. You’ll never hear banter like the kind they provide of a Sunday afternoon. Thanks so much for being you and for making me who I am.
And, of course, the biggest thanks go to my wife, Lisa, who puts up with all my nonsense, makes me laugh and sometimes manages to make me forget that there are even books that need to be done at all. She’s a miracle worker and I love her more than anything.
Time for one last adventure?
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Click the link or visit www.graywilliamsbooks.com.
Black Market Magic
The End of the Line
Strange Ways
Find out more
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
31 Helen Road Oxford OX2 0DF United Kingdom
Copyright © Gray Williams, 2020
The moral right of Gray Williams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788638463
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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