Pain Sluts

Chapter 1

There are so many people to thank - and so little space to do it in.

So, in no particular order, thank you to my family, who are of course my entire world. My husband Philip John, who never stopped believing in me, and my children Lili, Aaron, and Nel, the loveliest and most miraculous creatures on Earth. I love you.

Thank you to my extended family, who were there in the beginning. My guardian angel from way back when, Mamgu Treforus, my mother Elisabeth, my father Gerald, no longer with us physically but present in every other way, and my brother Dewi. (Not forgetting Meinir, and my nieces and nephew Dafydd, Mari, and Leisa, whose love of reading takes me back to my childhood.)

Thanks to my awesome tribe of friends, who kept me sane, and fed me treats. Helen, Lowri, Liz H, Jane, Liz R, Rachel, Claire, Megan, Emily, Emma, Charlotte, Alison, and the firebrands otherwise known as The Llandeilo Girls. You know who you are - and what you’ve done!

A final colossal thank you to my writing mentors, the late great English teacher Anne Walters, Jules Horne, my inspirational creative writing tutor at the Open University, and the team at STORGY Books, Tomek, Anthony, and Ross, but most of all to Tomek, who fuelled only by Aperol and a passion for independent publishing, painstakingly worked on every incarnation of every story, and whose words of encouragement gave me the confidence to keep on writing.

Diolch yn fawr, you’re all lush.