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HER GREATEST MISTAKE • SARAH SIMPSON

Publication Date: 1st April 2018 • Price £2.99

DO WE EVER KNOW WHAT GOES ON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?

Eve and Gregg were the perfect couple, with the perfect marriage... which has become the perfect lie. Gone is the charming, attentive Gregg - instead Eve wakes up each morning beside a manipulative and sinister man who controls his wife's every move.

So Eve flees her immaculate marital home to keep herself, and young son Jack safe. Yet no matter how careful she has been, she knows Gregg will be relentless in his pursuit of his missing family. And that one day, when she's least expecting it, he will find them...

What was Eve's greatest mistake?

Marrying Gregg? Leaving him? Or leaving him alive...?

Her Greatest Mistake is the gripping debut which will keep you guessing until the very last page. B.A. Paris meets Liane Moriarty in this electrifying thriller.

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Twitter: @sarahrsimpson 

Facebook: @sarahsimpsoncornwall 

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Extract

Chapter Two 

Cornwall 2016 

A little over three years ago we escaped to Cornwall. We simply packed our 

belongings, discarding the contaminated, and closed the weighted door firmly behind 

us. I bequeathed our dirty possessions to appreciative good causes. Soiled by life; lies 

and debauchery. It was all far too easy to do. Sometimes, the most difficult deeds are 

also the easiest to embrace. We both yearned for new beginnings. To cast away from 

the dark waters that nearly consumed us. Jack was just ten, but had witnessed and 

heard things to choke his conscience for the rest of his life. Like a polluted smog. 

My son Jack; how unfair he was born into this. He’s fourteen now; it’s been almost 

ten years since he was in your grip. The white-collar psychopath, clever, manipulating 

and sinister. My ex-husband. Jack’s father. You embezzled years from us both. You 

took me in, chewed me up and tried to swallow the mangled remains. Until I hit you 

where it hurt the most, and you spat me out. Before vanishing. So many years, 

looking over our shoulders, waiting, wondering. You didn’t return. 

Are you dead? I truly hope so. And so does Jack; he told me so. I hope you died a 

slow and painful death. I suspect I’m not the only one who lives in hope. 

It wasn’t always this way. I only want to look after you, you told me. I believed 

you, believed you loved me. Chosen and special. Only now, I understand there was 

always something not quite right about you. Initially, I found you to be sweet and 

protective. Unaware it, I, was all part of your game, mistaking your rule for care, your 

lies for truths. I was nothing more than a tool; you needed a wife. In actuality, you 

were not capable of loving anyone but yourself. Eventually, Jack became your tool 

too, to keep me even further under your jurisdiction. Imprisoning me for further years. 

Deluded, I stood. 

By the time I opened my eyes, it was too late. 

We followed the conventional path of dating, to marriage. The trodden path of 

Hansel and Gretel, with no obvious way back. You laid the way, I stupidly followed.

Though the birds didn’t eat the crumb trail; I cleared it myself. Blinded by the charm, 

flattered by the engineered care and hoodwinked by my virtue. You’re mine now, you’

d tell me softly, and I will take care of everything.

You have everything, you’re so lucky, friends would say from their observation 

point. Friends, whom I later betrayed; let go of. Because I was nothing more than a 

prisoner in a figurative cell, with no key. I couldn’t accept visitors; I was too 

ashamed, too lost. The worst I have to live with is knowing it was me who locked 

myself in. Now, it makes me shiver, my skin crawl. How could I have been so 

pathetically stupid? I truly hate hindsight. 

We were married in less than a year. Fraudulent vows disguised by context. The 

perfect couple, weren’t we? Two professionals in their twenties, everything ahead of 

us. Wasted dreams and fruitless hopes fell at the mercy of power. Greed. Ego. It only 

took a year to tread the path to my cell. Then, soon after, the arrival of Jack opened 

my heart but firmly locked the door. Trapped. If you could only learn to behave 

yourself, Eve, you wouldn’t need to be punished, you’d kindly advise me. You know, 

you only have yourself to blame, if only you would do as you’re told. Be less pig-

headed. Argumentative. I still wonder – how can an apparently intelligent person find 

herself as ensnared as I did? This still bites at my scars. But things aren’t always what 

they seem: we don’t always tell the truth; we don’t always see the truth. Even when 

we’re honest, the truth deceives. 

Easier to lie. Often to ourselves, but especially to others.

Everything turned black; this was the last time we saw you. That night in the car, 

etched into my mind. Not the only scar but one of the deepest. The screeching brakes, 

the cracking of my skull, then you were gone. I can’t remember anything after the 

impact; until the bright fluorescent lights, only subdued by the high-pitched bleeping. 

The harsh smell of disinfectant. Fear smacked me across the face and woke me: where 

is Jack? To this day, I’m not sure how much Jack has buried away in his 

subconscious I don’t think he realises either. Time will tell. 

Time isn’t always a healer; it can be an incubator too. 

You disappeared after this. Though you made one final visit to our house. 

Sometime between the disinfectant and us returning, or at least someone did. The 

house was ransacked. I knew what the perpetrator was looking for. They never would 

have found it; it was submerged deep in the dirt. A little like me: deep in the dirt. I didn’t call the police; it was too soon. Why would I hand over my most valuable 

weapon? You were not the only one with something to hide.

Author bio 

Sarah Simpson has a first-class honours degree in Psychology and has worked in a 

neuro-psychology department at a Brain Rehabilitation Hospital. When she first 

graduated she formed a mental health consultancy and worked as a psychologist 

within the family court system of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. Three years ago she 

moved to Cornwall with her husband and three children, and runs her own practice 

in Truro. Her Greatest Mistake is her first novel, and she is currently working on the 

second.