Black Heart Blue (26 page)
Humungous thanks to Amanda Punter, Mari Evans and Alex Clarke at Penguin. Thank you for your passion, expertise, wisdom and insight. Thank you to all the other brilliant Penguin and Puffin staff who have supported and assisted with the publication of
Black Heart Blue
.
To Amanda Preston at Luigi Bonomi Associates. Thank you for loving
Black Heart Blue
, for not giving up on me and for your brilliant agenting skills.
To my super sisters Emily and Margaret Barry. Thanks for always wanting to read what I write and for making me believe other people might want to read it too! Thanks to Gill and Dave for everything – you’re the best. To my BFM Juliette Tomlinson, whose opinion and help count for a great deal. To Sarah Mitchell, who has been an avid reader of every draft and believed in the book from the outset – thank you.
To the Gilded Palace of Sin for dark tunes.
To Rita Gabrielle Wilson. If ever there was a woman who loved words, it was you.
Above all my darling husband, Alistair. Thank you for putting up with me, for knowing about genetics, for
reading and believing. And thank you to my wonderful daughters, who make me laugh every day.
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this book, or would like to find out more, you may find these links helpful.
Treacher Collins syndrome
- BBC Health:
www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/treachercollins1.shtml - NHS disfigurement support:
www.nhs.uk/Livewell/facialdisfigurement
Support for teens dealing with physical/emotional/sexual abuse and/or bereavement
- Childline:
www.childline.org.uk - Samaritans:
www.samaritans.org - NSPCC:
www.nspcc.org.uk - Al-Anon UK, for family and friends of alcoholics:
www.al-anonuk.org.uk - National Association for the Children of Alcoholics:
www.nacoa.org.uk - Refuge – a domestic-abuse charity:
www.refuge.org.uk - Young people’s counselling at Relate:
www.relate.org.uk/young-people-counselling/index.html - Mind – a mental-health charity:
www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/sexual_abuse - Winston’s Wish – a charity for bereaved children:
www.winstonswish.org.uk
Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.
We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books
The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.
Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.
So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.
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Published by the Penguin Group
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WC2R 0RL
, England
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
First published by Penguin Books and Razorbill 2012
Copyright © Louisa Reid, 2012
Photography: Gravestones © Jenni Holma / Getty Images, Girl © Madelyn Mulvaney / Getty Images
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
‘Daddy’ taken from
Ariel
copyright © the Estate of Sylvia Plath and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd
Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-718-15877-4