Truly Madly Guilty(142)
Clementine held the photo up high, away from snatching tiny fingers.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
She looked again at the letter and saw that Erika had scrawled something in the bottom corner: PS. Just heard the news. Well done, Dummkopf. Knew you would.
‘Is it something “precious”?’ Holly used her fingers to give emphasis. ‘Precious’ was the word of the moment.
‘Yes,’ said Clementine. She looked at the tiny photo again. She’d have to keep it somewhere safe. It would be so easy to lose. ‘It’s something precious.’
Acknowledgements
Thank you so much to everyone at Pan Macmillan with special thanks as always to the wonderful Cate Paterson, as well as to Mathilda Imlah, Brianne Collins, Tracey Cheetham and Lara Wallace. Thank you also to my editors in the US and the UK: Amy Einhorn and Maxine Hitchcock.
Since becoming an author I’ve been so amazed at how kind people are when it comes to sharing their expert knowledge for fictional purposes. Thank you to Fenella for giving so incredibly generously of her time and expertise. Thank you to Rowena Macneish for patiently answering questions about life as a cellist, and to Cat Seekins for answering questions about her former life as a dancer. Thank you to Chris Jones for answering my medical questions. (As this is a book about neighbours, I would like to note that I was put in touch with Chris by his parents, Sue and Ken Jones, the loveliest next door neighbours you could ever hope to have.) Thank you Liz Frizell for answering my uneducated musical questions. All mistakes are sadly mine and mine alone.
Thank you to my friends and fellow authors Ber Carroll and Dianne Blacklock for their friendship and support with this novel.
Thank you to my lovely literary agent, Fiona Inglis, as well as my US and UK agents, Faye Bender and Jonathon Lloyd. Thank you to Jerry Kalajian for my entry into the wonderful world of Hollywood.
Thank you to Mum, Dad, Jaci, Kati, Fiona, Sean and Nicola, with special thanks to Kati and Fiona for help with proof-reading, and to Fiona for that sentence I stole. Thank you to Adam, George and Anna for being you. I’m so lucky I got the three of you. Thank you to Anna Kuper for everything you’ve done for our family.
Two characters in this book are named after people in the real world. Steven Lunt was the winning bidder at the ‘Get in Character’ fundraising auction run by CLIC Sargent Cancer Support for the Young. Robyn Byrne was the winner of the ‘Be Immortalised in Fiction’ competition at the Sisters in Crime Australia Davitt Awards.
I’ve dedicated this book to my sister, the amazing novelist, Jaclyn Moriarty, because I couldn’t have finished this book without her help and support. Actually, I know I wouldn’t have finished any of my books without Jaci.
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The following books were helpful to me in my research about hoarding: Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother’s Compulsive Hoarding (2011) by Jessie Sholl and Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller (2014). The website www.childrenofhoarders.com was also a great resource.
About Liane Moriarty Liane Moriarty is the author of six bestselling novels, Three Wishes, The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot, The Hypnotist’s Love Story, The Husband’s Secret and Big Little Lies. Her books have been read by more than six million people worldwide.
Writing as L.M. Moriarty, she is also the author of the Space Brigade series for children. The Husband’s Secret was a number one New York Times bestseller. It has been translated into more than thirty-five languages and film rights have been acquired by CBS Films. Big Little Lies reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week of publication – the first time this had been achieved by an Australian author. It was also number one on the Australian fiction charts and is currently being adapted for television by HBO, starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. Liane lives in Sydney with her husband, son and daughter.
You can find out more about Liane’s books at her website www.lianemoriarty.com
Also by Liane Moriarty
Three Wishes
The Last Anniversary
What Alice Forgot
The Hypnotist’s Love Story
The Husband’s Secret
Big Little Lies
Writing as L.M. Moriarty
The Petrifying Problem with Princess Petronella
The Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble
The Wicked War on the Planet of Whimsy
MORE BESTSELLING FICTION BY LIANE MORIARTY
Liane Moriarty
Three Wishes
The Kettle triplets have had a mortifying public mishap. Their noisy, champagne-soaked birthday dinner has come to an abrupt end following a violent argument and an emergency dash to the hospital.
So who started it this time? Was it angry, hurt Cat, still recovering from the ‘Night of the Spaghetti’? Or Lyn, who at least on the outside seems to have everything under control. Or maybe it was the unpredictable Gemma, the sister who can’t keep a secret, except the most important one of all …
‘In this non-stop narrative, siblings rival each other, break up and make up. Moriarty is good at social observation, mixing high drama with low comedy and moments of genuine poignancy.’ SUNDAY AGE