At Hodder and Stoughton, Eve Hall has been an invaluable collaborator and a total joy to work with. Eve, I so appreciate all your input and faith in me. Massive gratitude, too, to the whole Hodder team, for all your time and effort (especially Ellie Wheeldon for the audio encouragement!).

I’d like to thank the writing community at large, both at home and abroad; never have I encountered a warmer and more supportive bunch of people. I’m also indebted to my Curtis Brown Creative course-mates/beta readers/international writers group, for all their solidarity and motivation, especially Polly Crosby, Paula Arblaster, Ben Jones, Jo Kavanagh, Carol Barnes-Burrell, Sarah Jane King, Tracy Curzon-Manners, Kristy Gillies and Matt Telfer, who suggested the title.

This list would not be complete without the mention of my former employees, who I won’t name but whose stunning house provided the inspiration for Querencia. Thank you so much, both of you.

I’d also like to acknowledge my family and friends, the people who have loved and supported not just my best self but my worst, and all the selves in between. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, do life without you. Extra special thanks to:

Carly, Annabel, Caitlin, and Polly, for always being there.

Everyone who read early drafts and gave valuable feedback, especially Aoife Searles, Sarah Edwards, Sophie Devonshire, my stepmum, Liz, and my stepdad, Charlie.

Beth Vuk, for answering my questions on child psychology, and Abi Campbell, for the medical advice.

My Aussie tribe (you know who you are), especially Candice Boyd, for being a one-woman cheerleading squad and Jackie Lollback, whose kindness and regular willingness to look after my children so I can write is nothing short of mind-blowing.

My former day-job bosses, Richard and Chris, who did not fire me even though I was frequently found to be writing when I should’ve been working.

My in-laws, Bev and Pete, for all the emergency babysitting.

My mum, Heather, who basically makes my world go round.

My grandparents Jo and Ken, who always told me I could, and apparently always knew I would. My dad, Robert, the original storyteller. And Lu, my sister, best friend, and best whisp. (We are the same.)

My astonishing, clever, hilarious, beautiful children, Jack and Daisy. In blowing my world apart, you forced me to build a bigger, better and much happier one. I love you so much.

And finally, Matt, who is everything to me, and without whom none of this would ever have been possible.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

First of all, thank you from the very bottom of my heart for reading The Safe Place. When I was writing it, I worried all the time about getting it right, making it perfect; but then somewhere around the third draft, a close friend said something that really made me think.

“Your book will never be perfect,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I haven’t finished,” she said. “It will never be perfect until it finds its readers.”

I was confused. Surely a book only finds readers through publication, and why would anyone publish a flawed piece of work? But I think what my friend meant was this: that even the most brilliant, rigorously edited story is only a half-formed thing until it is read. And then it is completed by the mind of the person who picks it up.

So, I am forever grateful to you, reader, for picking up my book—not because you have made it perfect (perfection, I have since learned, is a myth), but for completing it. I truly hope that you enjoyed it, and if you’d like to get in touch to tell me what you think, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email or say hi on social media. There’s not much I love more than book chat.

Speaking of which, I’d like to take a minute to explain exactly how The Safe Place came to be. Because, in a roundabout sort of way, it completed me.

I grew up surrounded by storytellers of one kind or another. Raised on a diet of drama, I was always a creative kid, and I especially loved to write. But at around age ten, I was bitten hard by the theater bug.

For years, I was single-minded in my pursuit of an acting career. It was everything to me: my identifier. The girl in the play. There was nothing I enjoyed more than the rehearsal process and nowhere I felt more at home than on a stage. I worked relentlessly to achieve my dream of acting professionally and achieve it I did. After I graduated from drama school, I found employment in both theater and television—but it was a hard road and, as it turned out, I am not someone who deals well with unpredictability. The unstable nature of the job knocked me sideways and gave rise to extreme levels of anxiety and loneliness. In the end, it all got too much, and my career crumbled. Stripped of what I’d always considered to be my purpose in life, I felt lost and worthless. So, in 2008, I did the sensible thing and I ran away. (Any of this sound familiar?)

I went traveling. I lived on a snowy mountain and swam in the Red Sea. I climbed temples and rode horses. I fell in love with a tall, handsome Australian who would one day become my husband, and together we chased adventure wherever we could.

One of these adventures led us to a job working for an Anglo-American family of four, taking care of their spectacular holiday home on the mid-west coast of France. It couldn’t have been more perfect: the work was cruisy, and our employers were warm, funny, and exceptionally generous (we remain friends to this day). I should emphasize that nothing sinister happened while were there, and the characters in this book are in no way based on them, nor on anyone else with whom we came into contact during our stay. But the property was truly extraordinary. Living there gave us a glimpse into another world and its remote location guaranteed absolute privacy. We were more or less completely off the grid. Anything could happen here, I remember thinking at the time, and no one would know.

Sunshine, freedom, romance … running away had worked out pretty well for me. But in the back of my mind, I had begun to wonder how long I could keep it up. What would happen when the traveling inevitably stopped? What would I do? Who would I be? On one level I was having the time of my life, but on another I was scared. In escaping my problems, I’d left so much of myself behind.

Fast forward to 2016, a year that nearly killed me. I was living in Australia with my wonderful husband and raising two beautiful children. We’d built a lovely life in an idyllic coastal setting—but for some reason I was falling apart. At one particularly low ebb, I found myself curled in a ball on the landing outside my youngest child’s bedroom, unable to move. My baby was screaming from her cot, as was my toddler in the next room, but I couldn’t go to them. I was having a complete mental shutdown because my children wouldn’t take a nap. The anxiety, it seemed, was back.

Eventually, I picked myself up off the floor long enough to make an appointment with a psychologist. I saw her for months. Be kind to yourself, she said after every session. Take time out to do the things you love to do. Relax. Rest up. Recharge your oh-so-depleted batteries. But the only thing I wanted to do was work. Not just any work, though; I already had a part-time job and was in no way fulfilled. Instead, I felt adrift. Beyond all the nappies and the breastfeeding, I’d forgotten who I was. I’d run so far away from myself that I couldn’t remember how to get back.

I missed telling stories, but I couldn’t face acting again. So, I decided to try a different form of creativity: a quiet way to tell stories, on my own, just for myself. It was hard at first. I had no idea what I was doing, and between my job and the kids (my husband worked full-time) I had very little opportunity to learn. I read a few theory books, listened to some podcasts, and felt totally intimidated. I wrote a scene. It was terrible; I threw it away.

And the postnatal anxiety didn’t go quietly. I was terribly homesick for my family and friends on the other side of the world, and I fretted endlessly about my kids. I had become obsessed with a news story from a few years earlier—you know the one: a little girl who vanished from a European holiday resort, never to be seen again. I Googled it constantly. I became irrationally afraid that something terrible was going to happen to my children while I wasn’t watching, that someone was going to snatch them from under my nose.