Fiercombe Manor (50 page)

I must also mention Owlpen Manor in Gloucestershire for inspiring the setting of Fiercombe. I first came across this beautiful, atmospheric place in 2007, when I was invited to stay in one of the estate cottages for a travel piece I was writing. A few years later I found another excuse to go, and Sir Nicholas Mander, who lives there with his family, was kind enough to show me around. Thank you for letting me borrow some local names, features, and ghost stories.

Huge thanks also to the team at HarperCollins, in particular Claire Wachtel, whose intelligent, perceptive suggestions gave the
book much more depth and complexity. Also Hannah Wood, for being so nice to work with, and Miranda Ottewell for such a deft copyedit. Last but certainly not least, thank you to my agent Kate Burke (and Diane Banks before her) for excellent editorial advice, pinning me down to a deadline, and enabling me to make novel-writing my actual, real-life job.

PHOTO BY DARREN LOFTUS

KATE RIORDAN
is a British writer and journalist who worked for the
Guardian
and
Time Out London
. She is also the author of
Birdcage Walk
and is already at work on her third novel. Born in London, she now lives in the Gloucestershire countryside.

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Birdcage Walk

COVER DESIGN BY MILAN BOZIC

COVER PHOTOGRAPH © STUART BRILL / TREVILLION IMAGES

FIERCOMBE MANOR.
Copyright © 2015 by Kate Riordan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Originally published as
The Girl in the Photograph
in Great Britain in 2015 by Penguin UK.

FIRST U.S. EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-233294-3

EPub Edition February 2015 ISBN 9780062332967

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