Today, I am delighted to publish an extract from Close to Me by Amanda Reynolds that will be published as an e-book on 31st March. You can preorder the book here

About the Book

She can’t remember the last year. Her husband wants to keep it that way.
Dramatic psychological suspense for fans of Liane Moriarty’s The Husband’s Secret, Clare Mackintosh’s I Let You Go, and Linda Green’s While My Eyes Were Closed.
When Jo Harding falls down the stairs at home, she wakes up in hospital with partial amnesia – she’s lost a whole year of memories.
A lot can happen in a year. Was Jo having an affair? Lying to her family? Starting a new life?
She can’t remember what she did – or what happened the night she fell.
But she’s beginning to realise she might not be as good a wife and mother as she thought.

Twenty-One Days After The Fall

I turn away from my husband, shifting my weight on to my side, as far from him as the bed will allow. The movement is instinctive, dulled by the fact I’m only half awake, in the place between reality and unreality. I shiver, close my eyes tighter. Outside, the blanket of deepest night is unrelenting, the wind charging its way between the tall trees which edge the drive. I listen to the rain hitting the tiles as it pummels the roof and stone walls of our converted barn; a lone parapet at the top of the hill. I imagine the water tracking its way down the huge windows, swamping our garden and then soaking into the ground beneath.
My husband’s slow steady breaths and the familiar night-time noises within the house find my ear. I pull the duvet around me and allow my subconscious to take over, unlatching from the present, an almost physical letting-go. As I succumb to sleep the memories come, but I know they are unreliable; broken and unpredictable. The harder I search the further they retreat, but then something breaks through, at once unbidden and yet desperately wanted. As much as I crave the past, I fear it too.
He lunges, his right arm raised, slamming me hard against the wall; the force of his body holding me there. In his eyes I recognise passion, but of what nature and from what emotion it’s derived I cannot tell. I reach out again to the memory, my hand touching his face, turning him towards me to read something in his expression, to look into his eyes, begging him to stop. He pushes me away, grasping my wrist to dig his fingers hard into the pale skin and then the veins beneath, his rapid breaths hot against my neck. Insistent and urgent he holds me there, pinned to the wall. I’d fought him, of that I’m certain; my nails deep in his skin until he’d cried out.

I open my eyes; traces of early morning sunlight warming the room, creating patterns on the ceiling. I watch the rise and fall of my husband’s chest; the gentle sound of his breathing. Then he wakes too, turns to me and smiles, an easy smile, no trace of deceit; as though the last year had never happened.

With thanks to Headline.