Acknowledgements

Mom, thank you for being the only mother in history to encourage her daughter to drop out of law school and pursue creative writing. The jury is still out on whether this was sound advice, but I am certainly having fun.

Thank you to my creative writing professor at Concordia University, Josip Novakovich, for your guidance and insight, and for encouraging me to send my manuscript to agents and publishers. Your support gave me the confidence I needed to achieve my goal of becoming a published author. I would also like to thank my classmates at Concordia from ENGL-226 B, winter semester 2020, for your valuable feedback: Ben, Marija, Clea, Virginia, Kemba, Lena, Christopher, Katie, Desire, Apollo, Evelyne, Silvio, Natasha.

A huge thank you to my friends who responded in the affirmative to the awful question, “Will you read my unpublished manuscript and tell me if it’s any good?” Kevin Paquette, Thomas Sabbagh, Samuel Lemire, you’ve probably already guessed what you’re getting for Christmas…

Thank you to my favourite science fiction fan, Alex Corelli, for your constant love and support. I hope my pseudoscience doesn’t make your engineering brain cringe too much.

Thank you to all those who were there for me throughout this little adventure: my friends Yulia Petrosyan, Edward Liu, Rahul Taggar, Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, and Theo Zych; the “RDM” (you know who you are); my Papa whose hometown of Shawinigan I hope I have honoured; my sister Caroline, the only person who makes me feel tall—and her husband Michel, who reminds me that I certainly am not. To my nephew William, you will get your copy on your 18th birthday.

Thank you to my family in the North of England who welcomed me during a memorable trip and inspired the setting of this story. I look forward to returning!

And a special thank you to my publisher and editor, Catherine Fitzsimmons, for giving me this wonderful opportunity.