A Place for Us (44 page)

When a hopelessly romantic young woman suffers severe heartbreak, she learns perhaps too well to be wary of love and risks losing her chance at happiness with a truly wonderful man.

Hopeless Romantic

A wonderfully rich story of family, holiday traditions, and romance set in a tumbledown family manor home in the lush English countryside.

Going Home

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to:

My friend Jo Roberts-Miller, who I miss and who I don’t see enough and who one day called me on the phone and with whom I had this epic conversation that led to the idea for
A Place for Us
. Thanks, dear Jo-Jo.

Chris, because without you I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all and nothing would be worth it. And Cora, my beautiful girl, you make my day every day.

Fred and Tugie for boyztalk. Maura Brickell for cultural information. Olivia Bishop for Italian chats and Victoria Watkins for French chats, though any mistakes are definitely my own. Very special thanks to Richard Danbury for talking me through the grislier legal aspects of the novel—no spoilers, but suffice it to say he totally saved me from being buried under a mountain of legalese, and I must once again make it very clear that any mistakes are very much mine.

Lucia Rae (Lucia for President of the World), Melissa Pimentel, and everyone at Curtis Brown. And Jonathan Lloyd, a massive thank-you for Everything, very much with a capital E, these last few months.

My beautiful Gallery Ladies and Gents on the Avenue of the Americas—thank you to everyone at Simon & Schuster. Karen! Alex! You left, but I still thank you! Paige! Becky too! Jen! Oh, Jen. Louise! I am a lucky English mutha. And a mighty thank-you to Kim and David at Inkwell for always being there, and for always being right.

Finally, thanks to everyone at Headline for your welcome energy, professionalism, and the fact that I wake up every morning so happy that I’m with you!!!! Oh, good times. Thanks to Jamie, Jane, Barbara, Viviane, Vicky, George, Elaine, Frankie, Liz, Frances, Louise, Justin—I wish I had space for everyone. Most of all, though, thank you to Mari Evans. Whatever happens I will never forget the faith you had in me when I had none in myself. I feel like a different person now, thanks to you. (Bit heavy to lay that on you, but there it is: deal with it.) I am completely in awe of your skills at editing slash publishing slash life.

This book is for Thomas Wilson and Bea McIntyre, because if I have an amazing story, I always want to save it for you two, and there comes a point when you realize that you have been friends with someone for so long they are, sort of really by now, your family.

AUTHOR PHOTO BY RODERICK FIELD

HARRIET EVANS is the internationally bestselling author of
Going Home
,
A Hopeless Romantic
,
The Love of Her Life
,
I Remember You
,
Love Always
,
Happily Ever After
, and
Not Without You.
She lives in London. Visit her website at
Harriet-Evans.com
.

ALSO BY HARRIET EVANS

Not Without You

Happily Ever After

Love Always

I Remember You

The Love of Her Life

A Hopeless Romantic

Going Home

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Gallery Books

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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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 © 2015 by Harriet Evans

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

Extract from
Dear Octopus
by Dodie Smith reproduced by kind permission of Laurence Fitch Ltd.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition June 2015

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Cover design by Regina Starace

Cover image © Itziar Olaberria/Arcangel Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Harriet, 1974–

A place for us / Harriet Evans. — First Gallery Books hardcover edition.

pages ; cm

1. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

PR6105.V347P57 2015

823'.92—dc23

2014021087

ISBN 978-1-4767-8678-0

ISBN 978-1-4767-8679-7 (ebook)