The Runaway Woman. Josephine Cox

      

      

       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

      Copyright © Josephine Cox 2014

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

      Cover photographs © Mark Owen/Arcangel Images (woman); Mohamad Itani/Trevillion Images (house); Leszek Paradowski/Trevillion Images (path); Shutterstock.com (border)

      Josephine Cox asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780007419937

      Ebook Edition © February 2014 ISBN: 9780007419944

      Version: 2017-05-22

       Dedication

       This story is for every woman of every age who finds herself lost, lonely and afraid.

       Remember – the sun often shines after the rain has gone.

       For my Ken – as always.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

A special message from Jo

Part One: No One to Turn to

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Part Two: Revelations

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Part Three: Lucy’s Brave New World

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Part Four: Painful Decisions

       Chapter Twenty

       Part Five: Sometimes Dreams do Come True

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Celebrating the 50th book from the No. 1 Bestseller

       The Josephine Cox effect

       Praise for Josephine Cox

       Win a signed copy of The Runaway Woman

       Keep up to date with Jo

       Read on to discover more about Jo’s other fantastic reads

       The Broken Man

       Three Letters

       Midnight