First and foremost, thank you to my brilliant editor, Jennifer Barth. I am so grateful for your support and guidance. You are the one who so gently inquired if there might be a sequel to Elodie’s story, and I am forever thankful that you encouraged me on that path. You gave me permission to finish the story that was twenty-plus years in the making.
A humongous thank-you to my greatest champion and cheerleader, my longtime agent and friend, Bev Slopen. Thank you for never, ever giving up. Ever. We’ve come a long way since that first meeting twenty-three years ago. Who knew where that little novel called The Seed Man would take us?
Another huge debt of gratitude to Billy Mernit, the guy who makes everything I write much, much better. You are an extraordinary reader, editor, and mentor, with unmatched insight and vision. Thank you.
I feel truly blessed to have so many incredible people on my team. Birthing a book takes a village! To that end, I owe a huge thank-you to the most amazing marketing team ever: Irina Pintea, Cory Beatty and Katie Vincent (or as they’re known worldwide, Cory & Katie), Leo Macdonald, and Sandra Leef. The past couple of years have been a wild ride. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.
The idea for this story was inspired by my own life experience growing up half-English and half-French in 1990s Montreal, and then working as a journalist at the time of the 1995 referendum. But much of the insight I gained into the emotional story of the Duplessis orphans came from Pauline Gill’s book, Les Enfants de Duplessis (Quebec Loisirs Inc., 1991), the shocking and heartbreaking true story of Alice Quinton. I am deeply grateful to Alice Quinton for sharing her story with Pauline Gill, and for her candor, honesty, courage, and resilience.
I would also like to acknowledge Francis Simard and his book Talking It Out: The October Crisis from Inside (Guernica Editions, 1987). Simard’s frank and brutally honest account of his involvement in the events of October 1970 were invaluable to my research and understanding of those events, beyond just the facts. Although this story was inspired by real events, my depiction of Léo’s role in the October Crisis is purely fictional and the product of my imagination.
To my best friend and toughest editor, Miguel, I’m copying and pasting here for the sixth time: thank you for accompanying me to every reading and every festival and on every tour, for managing all my contracts, for saving all my publicity in a beautiful scrapbook, for picking up the kids and driving them all over the city and basically taking care of my entire life, so I can continue to be The Writer. I love you. Jessie and Luke, you bring all the joy.
Finally, thank you to my mom, Peggy, aka the real Maggie. It’s been a bittersweet ride without you, but I know for certain that you’re up there orchestrating every magical thing that has happened with and because of these books.