ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the best agent in the universe, Marlene Stringer, for falling in love with Maggie Mae enough to take a risk on me. Without you, Marlene, this book never would have made it. And a huge thank-you to Emily Easton for believing in me, and for her unending patience and wisdom!

Thank you, Mom and Dad, my sisters Tiffiny, Brittany, and Natalie, and my brother, Matt, for reading and loving my book, even in its early stages.

Thanks to my beta readers, Nicole, Cyndi, Shelly, Kelli, Elana, Michelle, Bonny, Sarah, Heidi, and Janie, for loving the story enough to read it until the wee hours of the morning. And thanks to Pat and Cole for telling me the story was good enough, even when I was in the depths of self-doubt.

Thanks to my kids, for not giving me funny looks when I’d zone off in the middle of dinner or start vocalizing dialogue between two characters while we drove around town.

To the woman who made me realize that deep down inside, I am a writer—my sister and accomplice-in-writing, Suzette Saxton—thanks for daring me to start!

Last of all, with overflowing love and gratitude, I’d like to thank my husband, Jaime, for dealing with me staying up night after night, sometimes till dawn, to get the madness of this story down on paper.