Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists
‘A very cleverly woven story… You'll finish this, wondering – who do I REALLY know?’ Teresa Driscoll Discover the gripping new novel about powerful secrets and big lies, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Tracy BuchananEveryone is allowed their secrets…aren’t they?Isobel arrives in the quiet Cornish town of Fallenbay determined to find peace – and answers – after her most intimate secrets have been splashed across the internet.Cleo thinks she’s happy running a small coastal café but has no idea of the trouble her children are getting themselves mixed up in.Sarah has finally put her horrible ex behind her and found the man of her dreams. Or has she?All three women have no idea how powerful their darkest secrets can be, and how they will change the town of Fallenbay forever..
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What a journey it has been for ERIN KNIGHT. In January 2013, she happened to see ITV’s Lorraine Kelly announce the search for the next big thing in contemporary women’s fiction. She sent in her 1,000 words and beat over 2,000 entries, winning the competition live on national TV on Valentine’s Day. Her books have since gone on to be published in fifteen countries worldwide.
Away from the ITV sofa, she is currently surviving a hefty Victorian renovation in Staffordshire with husband Jim, their three boys and badly-behaved Hungarian Vizsla.
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Anouska Knight 2018
Anouska Knight asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008180249
Version: 2018-02-26
For Sarah, Emma, Kirsty and Steph, who loved our girl too.
Contents
The first lie Isobel told her parents was that she was going away to forget it all.
She lifted her face to the sun beating down on the armchair in which she’d stationed herself in the corner of the café window, the worn leather warm and hospitable beneath her forearms. The tourist board’s website had promised hospitality. Other promises included a flourishing cosmopolitan atmosphere and some of the best surf and lobster in the British Isles! Fallenbay looked good in writing, but then Isobel knew better than to be suckered in by anything she read online. If she’d learnt nothing else, she’d learnt that much.
Fallenbay . . . Bay of the Fallen. Aptly named by the pirates who’d once besieged it. Now Isobel’s holiday destination. Her time out. A pretty distraction. She’d pitched it to her parents with those very words. They’d tripped right off her tongue and into her mother’s hopeful ears, easily as a damning rumour. Fallenbay was a just lucky hit. A random spot on the map Isobel had stuck her pin into. That was the second lie she told.
Isobel straightened her back and drained the last of the tea gone undrinkably cold while she’d been carefully observing the world passing by the windows of Coast, one of the harbour’s many eateries jostling for position beneath an intense blue sky. It was almost too bright to look outside, but still she watched.
Come back refreshed, Isobel. Renewed! Uncle Keith’s job offer will still be here waiting for you. You were wasted in teaching anyway, love. Her mum had jollied this encouraging prospect around a chewed lip while they’d all pretended that proofreading orders of services at Uncle Keith’s printers wasn’t a cataclysmic sidestep from Head of English at St Jude’s secondary. The bottom line was, Uncle Keith wouldn’t ask for references.
She took a breath and cleared her thoughts. A young mottled seagull bobbed along the pavement outside the café, eyes beady and accusatory. Isobel looked out over the ocean instead.
The aroma of newly warming pastries reached through Coast. Metal kitchen equipment clanked and rattled in the background. The coming summer would be glorious here, and Isobel could stay that long if she wanted to; she had time and money to burn now. The universe’s idea of a laugh. All that effort and hard work to save for their mortgage deposit. Months of overtime and cheap food. Nathan’s motivational speeches when all Isobel wanted was a half-term in Mexico.
