Acknowledgements

Thank you:

John, for your belief in outrageous potential and the three weeks alone on a beach in Goa to just write. I stole your eyes and a lot more than that and gave them to Alex, I hope you don’t mind.

Vic and Nic, for being the best friends and best readers a girl could hope for – I only finished this book because you were both cheering me on.

Tom, for your endless support and for being the kind of big brother Jacks are made of.

Sara, for that first phone call letting me know I could write.

Tara – Goan roomie and American editor – I owe you big time for explaining the difference between a vest and a tank top (and a few million other things like that).

All my blog readers – the kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

Laurie, my very great friend, with whom I first road-tripped California before this story was even a twinkle in my eye and with whom I hope to do many more road trips in the future.

Amanda, agent extraordinaire, for loving Lila and Alex as much as I do (I was worried for a time that we wouldn’t want to share Alex but thank goodness we got over that).

And finally to Venetia and the team at Simon & Schuster, for showing such faith in a debut writer. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it – well, I could, but it would mean writing a whole other book and we need to get on with editing the sequel to this one.