The Hating Game (eb0018)

For me to describe Claudia, I first have to admit that I once made a wish
—and it came true. Crazy, right? I know on an intellectual level that it
wasn’t me who created this outcome. I don’t have special powers. I wasn’t
an omniscient narrator, intoning what was soon to come while my widower
father sat in the dark playing his dead wife’s favorite records. I was just a
kid and I didn’t know what I was asking for.

But I wished so hard. That’s what always gets me. I was standing on a
kitchen chair when I asked my mom for something special. My request
streamed out of my chest like a sunbeam, from me to her, lighting up
heaven, and that night I rode my bike under a sunset that was every shade
of pink. One nod from Mom and the plan was in motion. That’s why my
heart still believes I made it happen.

And like all big wishes, I paid a price.
To avoid following that particular train of thought, I start to think about
my golden steaming braid again, just as the glass door to Centurion Security
pushes open and a young woman steps in. Unlike my inelegant backward-
pachyderm entrance, she looks like she’s slipping through red-velvet
curtains onto a stage. A spotlight wobbles and then encircles her in full
focus. She carries glossy cardboard shopping bags, strung around each wrist
like bunches of rectangle helium balloons that strain heavily below her
waist.
The bags have expensive logos: Chanel, Prada, Fendi, Tiffany & Co.
The audience knows this is a girl of generous means. She’s wearing a dress
that sparkles. Her hair is long and Old-Hollywood white-blonde. She lifts
her face to the light and her audience thinks, holy shit. Ineloquent, but we’re
all in the same boat there.
Here she is, Claudia Carson, my own personal wish come true, and this
is how she enters every single room.

About the Author

SALLY THORNE lives in Canberra, Australia, and spends her days
writing funding submissions and drafting contracts (yawn!), so it’s not
surprising that after hours she climbs into colorful fictional worlds of her
own creation. She lives with her husband in a house filled with vintage toys,
too many cushions, a haunted dollhouse, and the world’s sweetest pug. The
Hating Game is her first novel.

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Praise for The Hating Game

“Deliciously fun and super sexy, Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game stole my
life for two days. I couldn’t put it down until Lucy and Josh’s all-consuming
hateship changed into a tentative friendship and then a juicy, tender,
adorable love.”

—Valerie Frankel, bestselling author of Four of a Kind

“A brilliant, biting, hilarious new voice. The Hating Game will take the
rom-com world by storm. One of the best I’ve read, ever.”

—Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author

“An addictive, dazzling debut. The Hating Game is bursting at the seams
with love (and hate) and heart.”

—Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author

“Be prepared to play the Charming Game with Sally Thorne. The
irrepressible Lucy and her starchy, growly counterpart Joshua will win you
over from the opening page.”

—Jane Litte, Dear Author

“Thorne is a strong writer and one to watch. Her debut will have readers
rooting for both Lucy and Joshua in whatever games they play.”

—Library Journal

“Funny, smart, fresh, and thoroughly enjoyable from the first delicious page
to the last. I highly recommend.”

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author



Credits

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s
imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living
or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE HATING GAME. Copyright © 2016 by Sally Thorne. All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted
the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part
of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of
HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-243959-8

EPub Edition AUGUST 2016 ISBN 9780062439604

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