Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis
Acknowledgements
This part – as much it is my favourite – always feels so daunting to write. Because while writing might be a solitary profession – just me, my laptop, and many, many cups of coffee, most of the time – it takes a village to bring a book into the world and without each and every one of them, I probably wouldn’t even have an acknowledgements page to write. (And of course, I’m always so worried I’m going to forget someone!)
Firstly, I owe so much to my incredible agent Juliet Mushens at Mushens Entertainment. Juliet, thank you so much for your advice, your guidance, kindness and friendship, (and for calmly listening to my insane ‘I’m going to delete my book and move to the woods to live off grid, sorry, bye’ voice notes.) Without you and your fire-extinguishing, I’d be a little lost koala.
A massive thank you also, to the whole Mushens Entertainment dream team and co-agents, and to the simply brilliant Jenny Bent at The Bent Agency, New York.
To my brilliant editor Charlotte Mursell, thank you so much for your hard work, passion and excitement, and for completely ‘getting’ me and the stories I want to tell (even when those stories are a mere wobbly skeleton of what they’ll end up becoming!) Thank you to Alex Layt and Lucy Cameron, and the entire lovely, hard-working team at Orion.
To my U.S editors, the amazing Emily Bestler and Lara Jones – thank you for your vision, your encouragement and your cheer-leading. It is an absolute dream come true to work with you both, as well of course, as the whole incredible team at Atria/Simon & Schuster.
To the many talented writer-friends I am fortunate enough to have; you are the best far-away work colleagues I could ever ask for. Thank you to my bestie Gillian McAllister, to L D Lapinski, Lynsey James, Lindsey Kelk, Hayley Webster, Laura Pearson, Stephie Chapman, Rebecca Williams, Lia Middleton, Nikki Smith, Holly Seddon, Hina Malik, and so, so many more of you who make my tiny, little world feel big and wide and warm. You are at the proverbial water cooler in my phone, rain or shine. Your beautiful words make the world a better place.
To my beautiful friends who accept and love me for the old-before-my-time, Friday-nights-in-my-pyjamas hermit that I am. You know who you are. Thank you.
Mum and Steve, Dad and Sue, Bubs, Vicky, Alex, little Lottie and Max, Nan, Grandad, Alan and Libby. You are the warmest, proudest, funniest family of all. I’d be lost without you, and your love.
To my three beautiful babies, and to my Ben: thank you for loving me. Thank you for being my safety and my home. Thank you for accepting me for all I am (and blowing smoke up my arse and telling me I’d win Masterchef every time I nail the Sunday Yorkshire puddings.)
And to you, the readers. To everyone who has read my books, reviewed, reached out, spread the word, made beautiful posts. Thank you. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to do
If you loved Eight Perfect Hours, don’t miss the achingly romantic love story Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis!Click here to read now:
And follow up with Lia Louis⁏ enchanting and funny debut novel, Somewhere Close to Happy,available to read now: