Publishing a second book is a whole different beast from the first. It took about five years of tinkering for City of Broken Magic to emerge. While drafts for The Monstrous Citadel have been around almost as long, the changes to book one and the sudden influx of publishing knowledge have affected it greatly. The real work of it has been crammed into about a year. Quite frankly, I kitchen-sinked it. This completed version is thanks to the tireless work of my editor, Jennifer Gunnels, who helped me find the most important pieces and helped me polish them into the narrative they were meant to be. My sincere thanks also goes to my agent, Peter Rubie, who helped guide me through this literary version of the “sophomore slump,” and called to make sure I was okay when he saw the sheer amount of edits on draft one.
There’s also a crowd of people I didn’t know well enough to thank in book one, so I’ll remedy that now: Thank you to June Clark, who steered me through author presence and helped me build my website; thank you to my publicist, Lauren Jackson, who focused on book presence and helped me make my first real appearance, at the Wisconsin Book Festival; thank you to Natalie Naudus and the Macmillan Audio team, who turned City of Broken Magic into an audiobook and therefore fulfilled a wish I’ve had since my childhood road trips (now if only I could connect it to my old car radio!); thank you to cover artist Tony Mauro, because it’s one thing for the debut book you’ve worked so long on to have a cover, but it’s a dream to have a cover that looks so fantastic; thank you to my copyeditor, whom I didn’t interact with directly but who saved me from phrasing mistakes I hadn’t even noticed; thank you to the Tor team at large, for all the work they’ve put into pitching and delivering this series so far; thank you to my grandmother, who immediately went out and bought twelve copies of book one; thank you also to Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, for giving her the opportunity to buy those twelve books, for listening to her bragging about the author, and for earlier introducing said author to fantastic independent bookstores.
Last but not least, thank you, reader. Every writer has a fear that their work isn’t good enough, or that the only people who’ll end up reading it are their family members. You’ve proven my worries wrong in the best way.
It’s been a long and exciting road to The Monstrous Citadel. I hope you enjoy it.