Acknowledgments

Thanks once again to editors Amy Glaser and Nicole Nugent and the entire Midnight Ink crew for publishing this series. I’m so pleased to have Greg Newbold creating the art for the gorgeous covers.

I’m grateful to author Tiger Wiseman for again opening her Vermont home for a writer’s retreat in the summer of 2016. I also wrote furiously for a weekend at the Wicked Cozy Authors annual retreat. These awesome authors—Jessie Crockett/Jessica Estevao, Julie Hennrikus/Julianne Holmes, Sherry Harris, Liz Mugavero/Cate Conte, and Barbara Ross—are the best support group ever.

Rose’s mother, Dorothy Henderson Carroll, is named for my paternal grandmother, Dorothy Henderson Maxwell, who was born only a few years after this book takes place. Midwife and mystery fan extraordinaire Risa Rispoli again vetted the birthing details in the book.

Independent editor Ramona DeFelice Long once again gave the book a close edit, and it’s a much better book for her insightful comments and questions. She reminded me, after I sent her a manuscript with only one midwifery-related scene, that part of the allure of this series is Rose being a midwife, not just an amateur sleuth. Oops. I fixed that right away. Ramona also hosts a virtual writing champions group every day at seven a.m. on Facebook. That hour of uninterrupted writing every morning, with a dozen other writers scattered all over the country doing the same, is one of my most productive creative times. Thanks, O Champion of the Writing Champions! In addition, I hied off with Ramona, KB Inglee, and author Kimberly Gray to a convent retreat house for some intensive writing, where I polished this book and started another.

The character Frannie Eisenman is a real person in the current era. She won the right to name a character at the Super Sawyer Fund auction, an auction to raise money for a little boy undergoing leukemia treatments. Hope you like your 1888 self, Fran! Ruby Bracken was also a real person, the mother of Moishe Ragieme, who was the high bidder on my naming rights item in the 2015 Rags to Runway auction, which benefits a school in Guatemala. Jasmine is named for the granddaughter of yet another generous charity bidder, Jane
Harris-Fale for Opportunity Works. And the name Emily Hersey was a Rubbish to Runway auction winner, won in 2016 by Lisa Losh. The real Emily, Lisa’s grandmother, was a long-time Amesbury resident living on Market Street who played piano and raised six children.

Thanks again to Allan Hutchison-Maxwell for reading the manuscript and offering his valuable editorial comments, and to his wonderful fiancée, Alison Russell—historians both—for doing the same.

My Amesbury Quaker family, my Sisters in Crime family, my good friends, my family by blood, my partner Hugh—I love you all and thank you, always, for your support.

I appreciate readers and librarians more than I can express. If you like my stories (please also check out my mysteries written as Maddie Day), a brief review on Amazon or Goodreads really helps an author—as does telling your friends.