This book is the result of two false starts, three completely different drafts, and the hard work of lots of people besides me. First and foremost, I am eternally indebted to the brilliant Abby Ranger, who came up with the original idea for this story and trusted me to write it. Words simply cannot express how grateful I am to her for this opportunity. Next, boundless thanks to my superb and just all-around-awesome editor, David Linker, for his insight and guidance during the latter half of this process. My sincerest thanks also to Kate Jackson for her patience and understanding; Rose Pleuler for her work on the first draft; Carolina Ortiz, Jon Howard, and Andrea Curley for their work on this one; and to everyone else at HarperCollins involved with this project—thank you, thank you, thank you!
Cheers, as always, to my dear agent, Bill Contardi, without whom I’d be lost. Much love and gratitude to my parents, Anthony and Linda, for their unwavering support during the hardest of times, and to my sitters, Anna Higginson, Kiara Hines, Grace Hamashima, and Lisette Glodowski, for keeping my daughter occupied during those hours when deadlines loomed and I needed to write. Thanks once again to Michael Combs for his friendship and never-ending encouragement, and to the following kind souls for listening when they could have been doing much better things: Carey Blackburn, Jessica Braun, Michael Eubanks, Daniel Fetter, Nicholas Lease, Joseph Lisi, Caroline May, Aubrey Moya-Mendez, Matthew Reda, Darian Rutter, Jane Simmons, Donald Sutton, Pierce Williams, Andrew Antoci, Matt Donahue, Morgan Goodman, Catie Griffin, Jayme Johns, Olivia Manlove, De’Ja McKnabb, Tyler Smith, Kelly Toland, Grant Vandervoort, Joseph Webster, Madeline Whallen, Collin Yates, and Kennedy Young.
And finally, to my dear friend and mentor, the late John Shearin: thank you for continuing to watch over me.