Books don’t come about because of one person sitting alone in their room, writing and never interacting with another human being, even if that was (and still is) my dream. Books are created by a community, and while I may have written everything on these pages, so many people helped me to refine those words and then create the beautiful package that has found its way into your hands.
There are many people to thank for being part of that community, so thank you to everyone listed here, and many others.
First, my editor, Kristin, who helped me to understand the conventions of my First Ever Sequel, and explained to me things like “People might have read the first one a year ago!” and “Some people start in the middle of the series!”, even if that second one still horrifies some part of me. Her guidance helped me to refine this story and make sure it didn’t get pulled too strongly one way or another, that it was, first and foremost, a mystery, not a history lesson, not erotica. (It came pretty close in one draft.) Her insight, as always, was invaluable, and I absolutely could not have gotten the book to where it is without her. And somehow, she made all of it a continued pleasure. Working with her is like the best kind of party.
And my agent, Joy, my stalwart, my knight in shining armor, who is always there when I need her. When this book comes out, she’ll have been my agent for twenty years!! (Yes, I got an agent for my bar-mitzvah.) And so it fits that I’ll have three books coming out this year, and all of them are in honor of her and our partnership—our friendship. Aside from my husband, she’s probably the person I talk to the most. She’s family. And I can never thank her enough.
And while we’re talking about family, my parents deserve all the thanks in the world, not just for making sure I was raised on all those old noir movies, but for the continuous support in this insane business / my insane life. I cannot thank them enough.
Troix, who joined the series when the first book was done and so only got to be an editor this time around, has been an absolute delight, not just because she’s another queer voice on the team but because she’s such a natural editor. Her insights and notes have helped to shape the book, and more importantly, have helped me figure out what it was I was trying to do. I can’t thank her enough.
Katie and Colin deserve all the praise and thanks for creating another astounding cover. Covers for sequels, it turns out, are really hard! Which conventions do you bring over? How do you make it relate to the first cover, but still stand on its own? How do they look next to each other on the shelf? It’s a lot to take in, and they did that all with such aplomb and skill, and look at the front of this book! It’s amazing, they’re amazing, and I’m so lucky to have them working on this series and just to have gotten to know them even better. They’re just amazing people and so talented; I’m so grateful.
My publicists, Laura and SallyAnne, who have been SO, so amazing, making sure this book found its way into your hands and many other hands as well. The market is inundated with so many voices, and trying to make sure one stands out is a hard job, and one I am in no way equipped for, so I’d be completely lost without them. I cannot thank them enough, because even if this was the best book in the world, no one would know about it without them.
Likewise, the marketing team: Jennifer, the marketing queen; Anthony, the library king; Lucille; Eileen; Arianna—their jobs are so hard, making sure one drop of water in an ocean somehow stands out. They’ve created such a beautiful strategy with these books and have fulfilled it with so much enthusiasm and joy. Thank you so much.
Thank you, in fact, to the entire Forge team, overseen by Linda, who have just made publishing so much fun again. I’ve been in this business awhile, and putting out a book can be exhausting and demoralizing. But the enthusiasm and kindness you’ve all shown me has made me really love this part of the job again—I’m so grateful I get to work with each and every one of you, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the zeal and kindness you bring to your jobs. Thank you.
My writing group—Laura, Dan, Jesse, and Robin—actually helped me hash out the plot to this book. I knew I was writing a sequel, and so I asked them all to read the first one, and then sort of ran ideas by them, and they helped me refine it into something I could actually make into a novel. It was so much fun, and I can’t thank them enough. We’ve been a writing group in some form for over a decade now, and I’m just so grateful for the constant work everyone puts into it and the fun of seeing everyone, even as we’re all across the country now, and talking about our work. Thank you guys so much.
And the rest of my writing community: Tom, Dahlia, Adam, Caleb, Julian, Sandy, Adib, Cale, Teri, and so many others. Having you all in my corner makes this insane career so much more manageable. Or at least, more fun.
I also want to thank John again, for bringing me into not only the bookstore, but the community. Getting to meet you in person and talk with you and really do an event made me feel like I was part of the mystery community. Likewise, thank you so much to all the other mystery writers who have welcomed me: Hank, especially, who has been my constant cheerleader, and Barbara, Chantelle, Alex, Dan, PJ, Rachel, Wanda, Rita, Nekesa, and Walter. Thank you for making my lil gay stories feel welcome in a space I felt sure would not want them.
Finally, as with Lavender House, I have to thank the queer historians whose shoulders I stood on to write this novel. Again, Nan Alamilla Boyd’s Wide-Open Town was a key text for me, one I came back to again and again. I took inspiration for the three bars in this book from three San Francisco queer bars: Shelly’s was inspired by Finnochio’s, Cheaters by Mona’s, and the Silver Jay by Jack’s on the Waterfront. Two of those bars I first read about in Wide-Open Town, and though I took many liberties with them, those liberties were informed by everything I read about in Boyd’s book. I cannot recommend it enough.
For research about the Lavender Scare and the military both during and after WWII, I turned to Coming Out Under Fire by Allan Bérubé and The Lavender Scare by David K. Johnson. Both are excellent books that paint a fascinating portrait of contradictions that I hope I managed to portray in the book. To be queer in the military during WWII was both incredibly freeing and filled with stifling paranoia. Men openly made out on ships and were told just to move or else be court-martialed. Queer people, funneled together by the draft, found one another for the first time and created communities, even newsletters, like the queer army newsletter The Brighton Beach Bitch … and in doing so, became more visible, which made the military crack down on them more, which lead to more visibility like the Kinsey Reports, which lead to more crackdowns—in the form of the Lavender Scare, which at its height was more reported on than the Red Scare. It’s a cycle we keep going through, as evidenced by the real-life Newport Scandal that Sidney was a part of. But these books made both the joy and fear of it all so human, and the stories within both chilled and warmed me. I couldn’t have written this without them. Looking back on our history isn’t as horrible as you might think; yes, our past is filled with hate and persecution, but it’s also filled with love and hope. The men who were discovered in the military in the later years of WWII were sent to military asylums, and there they found community, threw parties, laughed. Some said it was some of the best times of their lives. Even when we’re persecuted, we find family and love. That’s part of the cycle, too.
So thank you to the community, not just those who made this book, but those queer historians who continue to make our community bigger and more open.
And to Chris, for being Chris.