Chapter 1

1

PRESENT DAY

Blake stared out of the window of the boardroom, twirling her pen between her fingers as she tried to listen to the conversation going on around her. The floor-to-ceiling windows in their Mayfair office were a frame to the busy London streets below, and she couldn’t help but be distracted by the view. They’d been in a meeting for the better part of an hour, and from the distressed pitch of her editor’s voice, they weren’t getting anywhere. After so long sitting, she was beginning to find it hard to concentrate.

She made herself turn back to look at the woman who’d given her a chance eight years earlier, and saw the exasperation etched on her face. Deborah was her editor and her mentor, and Blake could sense the depth of her frustration as she faced the roomful of disengaged writers and junior editors. They’d become incredibly close in the years since Deborah had hired her, and she had great respect for her not only as a boss, but also as one of the most talented editors in publishing. And today she could feel her weariness—it seemed that no one had any ideas that didn’t sound exactly like what everyone else had already used a hundred times over, or that they’d published themselves.

‘I don’t think any of you understand what’s at stake here. If we don’t make this new digital format a success, we’ll all be out of a job.’ Deborah sat back down in her chair with a sigh. ‘We need new content, we can’t just recycle old ideas. Exciting, fresh stories will drive readers to our site, which will in turn attract bigger advertisers and keep you all employed. But what we really need is a reason for our readers to subscribe, something to keep them coming back. We need content that makes them want to pay over five pounds a month, when they’re already being bombarded with streaming services and publishing subscriptions dropping into their inbox every single week. We need something to set us apart, to make this launch a guaranteed success.’

The room was silent, and Deb threw her hands up into the air. Blake quickly cleared her throat, trusting her instincts and saying the first thing that came into her mind before someone else tried to reinvent the idea of pop quizzes, or suggest an article dissecting which fashion designer might be the favourite of Princess Kate. Again. She had the ability to save this meeting, and she needed to do it before Deborah stormed out of the room and gave up on them all completely. Deb always told her to think big and pitch the stories she truly wanted to write, and up until today, Blake had never been brave enough. But if there was a chance their jobs could be on the line, she knew that now was the time to speak up.

‘What about a series of feature articles, blog-style?’ Blake asked, sitting up straighter as she stared at her boss. ‘I’m thinking late ’90s, Carrie from Sex and the City . I know you explicitly said not to recycle old, but what if that’s what people want again? To really hear the writer’s voice and connect with her experiences, feel the nostalgia of the past? There’s something about that era I think my generation is yearning for.’

‘I’m listening,’ Deborah said, her eyebrows raised as she leaned forward in her chair and gestured to Blake. ‘Please, continue.’

‘I think we need to write about the things that no one else is writing about, and that means going deep with personal journeys instead of just scratching the surface with the latest trend or asking every high-profile woman we interview how she juggles work and kids, or how she puts together a capsule wardrobe.’ Blake paused, still not sure whether to pitch the specific idea she was mulling, or keep it to herself. She hesitated. ‘If I’m completely honest, I think we need to make ourselves vulnerable by putting our genuine life experiences on the page.’

‘If you have something specific in mind, now is your chance to pitch it. But I don’t want to do anything dating-related, and no gimmicks about being single, because quite frankly, I don’t have the stomach for it. I’m also sick to death of hearing about dating apps.’

‘What about a mystery, then?’ Blake asked. ‘Something that keeps our readers coming back to find out the rest of the story, something to get them invested in the outcome? Something that makes it worth paying a subscription for, because if they cancel after their free trial, they’ll never know the ending?’

‘I think there are enough true crime podcasts out there,’ one of the writers muttered. ‘I thought she wanted fresh?’

‘Go and get us some coffees,’ Deborah ordered, giving the young writer a withering look, before lowering her voice. ‘You want to be in the room, then show some goddamn respect to your fellow writers, especially the senior writer who is actually contributing to the conversation. That goes for all of you.’

Blake took a breath, turning her attention back to Deborah as the young guy skulked from the room. ‘I received something last year,’ Blake said, deciding that it was now or never. ‘I was given a little wooden box that supposedly belonged to my great- grandmother, and to cut a long story short, it appears she put her child up for adoption—my grandmother, Mary.’ She paused, clearing her throat as she noticed that some of the more junior editors looked particularly disinterested. She was almost certain she could see their eyes glazing over. ‘Anyway, she left clues behind in case said grandmother ever came looking for her. They were left hidden in the little box for decades, until now.’

Blake immediately wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Why oh why did I feel the need to share all of that? She’d been pushing away thoughts of the box for months, not ready to go down the rabbit hole of discovering her grandmother’s past and bringing back all those memories, and yet she’d just gone and told everyone in the room her long-held secret.

Her editor’s eyebrows stayed raised, as if she’d finally heard something that interested her. ‘You officially have my attention. Please, continue.’

‘I haven’t had the time to really delve into it, but what if I wrote about it for our readers? Took them on the journey with me as I tried to uncover past secrets? It would be a personal story, but one that not even the writer knows the ending to.’

Deborah sat back and smiled, giving Blake a look that told her she’d pitched her exactly what she’d been waiting for all morning.

‘Now that is what I call fresh content, and you’re right, the mystery is what would sell it, the fact that even the writer doesn’t know the outcome until almost the moment the reader does,’ Deborah said, before turning to her assistant, who was furiously taking notes beside her. ‘Lucy, can you make a lunch reservation for two at Kitty Fisher’s? Blake, work up some ideas and clear the rest of the day. I’ll have a car waiting to take us to lunch at onep.m.’ She spun back round and addressed the room. ‘We still need a lot more content. This is only the start, so I want everyone working on pitches for me. I’ll call a meeting on Wednesday to hear them all.’

Blake swallowed, not sure whether she’d just pitched the best idea of her life or the very worst. She glanced at her watch. The only thing that was clear was that their lunch reservation was only two hours away, which meant she had virtually no time to come up with the presentation of a lifetime.