The Sister Surprise by Abigail Mann (book series for 10 year olds .txt) 📕

I feel incredibly lucky to work with Tilda, whose insight and clarity when it comes to story wrangling really is second to none. I genuinely feel excited when I get notes back from her. Somehow, she just gets it, you know? Thanks for letting me know when I’m genuinely being funny and when I’ve taken it too far. It’s not always clear when you spend hours each day in a basement trying to make yourself laugh.

Huge thanks go to my copy editor, Sharmilla Beezmohun. When you’ve spent weeks trying to figure out dates and timelines, copy editors really do feel like fairy godmothers. Your insight and clarity had me blinking in awe.

Is it possible that the One More Chapter team contains the nicest people in publishing? I think so! Thanks to Claire Fenby, Melanie Price, Bethan Morgan, Charlotte Ledger, and everyone else who has championed the book. Also, huge thanks to Sabah Khan, who is a total boss when it comes to publicity. I can’t wait to sip fizzy wine with you all again!

There are only a few people who witness the rough points of writing as well as the highs, and Joe has seen it all. Thank you for dragging me away from my desk and pushing me outside when I was being a worry worm. It’s not easy to make me laugh when it’s 10 p.m. and I’ve still got 1,000 words to write, but you manage it somehow.

To Mum and Dad – wahey! I did it again! My love of farms and rural life has largely come from the summers spent at The Buzzards growing up. I have a confession: it was me who let the piglets escape. But, hey! It inspired a scene in this book, so …

To Linford, Rachael, and Cassidy. Thank you for all your advice over the past year and for always having onion rings ready when I come round. I love you all immensely.

To The McKibbens, who have allowed me to be a writing gremlin in their basement for the past year. Thanks for letting me off dinner duty when I was close to a deadline and celebrating with me when I hit a milestone. Extended thanks go to my pet housemates, Wally the cat and Maddie the border collie. You might be able to spot them in this book …

I’ve got some stupidly brilliant friends whom I often spam with questions and extracts from dodgy first drafts. So, huge thanks to my Norfolk Girls, who are relentlessly funny, supportive, and kind. I bloody love you guys. Also, thanks to Emily. I will always have a Choco Leibniz in my heart for you.

I want to say thank you to all the authors in the Debut 2020 group. Being published is full of unknowns, but we’ve banded together in what has arguably been the most difficult year (ever??) to bring out your debut. Our community is so special and I hope we’re still supporting each other for mannnnnyyyy years to come.

Finally, thanks to my readers. This wouldn’t be here without you. I’m eating a box of Tunnock’s Tea Cakes in homage to you.

Keep Reading …

If you enjoyed The Sister Surprise, don’t miss Abigail Mann’s laugh-out-loud debut

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Chapter 1

I’ve come to accept that I am honestly and truly terrible at my job. Like, seriously bad. Until recently, I thought I’d naturally ‘come into my own’, like one of those women who gesticulate wildly in front of a flip chart with red nails and swishy hair fresh from the blow bar. I’ve had jobs where I’ve been decidedly average, like the bakery gig I had at university (I overstuffed the baguettes), or the two bar shifts I managed at the campus club (I self-diagnosed sleep deprivation and had to quit), but never wholly incompetent. Ironically, I’m not even earning a wage at this internship and it’s where I feel most out of my depth.

I look down at the notes I made on the tube this morning and feel a lurch in my stomach like I’ve driven over a humpback bridge. How it’s possible to interpret these blunt scribbles into a meaningful report about the past week’s social media engagement is entirely beyond me. But last week I sat through a three-hour-long webinar on Big Data without slipping into a coma, so I can surely get through this. When it comes to anything digital, my only saving grace is that my boss Mitchell knows less about social metrics than I do, which is really saying something.

Adam, who has worn flip-flops and a salmon-pink polo shirt throughout winter, is coming to what I think is the end of his presentation. He’s slightly sweaty and puffy-looking under the glare of the projector lamp. I shift on my yoga ball, which squeaks like a fart and makes my heartbeat quicken. Suki is the only one who breaks into a smile from across the desks, which have been wheeled in front of Mitchell’s glass cube of an office. This is the ‘conference zone’ and it’s a sign that we have to switch into ‘serious mode’. The rest of the time we’re in ‘self-governed workplace allocation’, which basically means ‘sort yourselves out and don’t fucking bother me’.

‘I made progress, yeah. They were just about tugging me off for another meeting next week, so I’ll get on that, Mitch.’ Whilst Adam talks, he pulses his hips. Eurgh. If I did that, it would definitely be considered indecent.

Last night, Adam took two Indonesian investors to a Hoxton-based craft-beer brewery followed by crazy golf and penalty shots, which, according to him, isn’t the reason I was swapped into today’s early-morning conference call with our developers in San Francisco.

My phone, which I’ve placed over a shopping list I’d been writing, buzzes