ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who supported me in writing my first work of fiction.

My dear friend since the first day we met at Duke, my soul sister, Vicki Scott: thank you for reading everything I write. You will always be my Ideal Reader.

Huge thanks to my friend Cristina Lima, for the gift of Brasil: Nunca Mais (Brazil Never Again), the report of the commission on institutionalized torture during the dictatorship.

Thanks to my reader panel for your brilliant insights and suggestions: Annemie Tieman, Bryony Mortimer, Cassiopeia Frank, Chris Everett, Clare Marwood, John Meredith, Liz Healey, Peter Whitaker, Philip Marwood, Ruth Wilkinson and Susan O’Dell.

Thank you to my teacher, mentor and editor, Martin Ouvry, my guide to the ways of fiction. Martin provides encouragement, perfectly blended with ideas for improvement. He teaches me how to fish; he never gives me a fish.

My son Jackson de Oliveira, whose business and marketing acumen, tech and moral support help me immensely.

Jasiel de Oliveira, my husband and partner in everything: thank you for all the years of contributing more than fifty percent to our day to day, and for listening to me read the entire novel to you and helping me keep it authentic. It might all have been possible without you but no way it would have been as much fun.

My dear mother-in-law, Judite de Oliveira: Eva’s life is one you never lived, but your work ethic, sense of humor, culinary skill and stories of the early days in Paraíba and Brasília were my inspiration.