Acknowledgments

This book was a nightmare to write.

It was my first book under contract, my editor changed right before I started writing it, my debut was coming out, and there was a major family tragedy. To say I wasn’t in a great place mentally while writing is the understatement of the year.

The first time I wrote the book, it was alllll wrong. The plot was wrong, the character arcs were wrong, everything was just . . . bad. And I didn’t know how to fix it. So I sent the book to my amazing friends J. S. Dewes and Kim Smejkal, and they were honest with me—there were some great things in the book, but it was really, really broken.

So I took a deep breath, moped, took long dramatic walks in the brisk winter air, and I rewrote the book. New plot. New characters. The only thing I kept was half of one character arc and the first few chapters. The rest went into the trash bin folder, and I rewrote the book, basically from scratch.

So, a million thanks to J. S. Dewes and Kim Smejkal, because without them, it would have been a much harder journey.

Thanks also to my other beta readers, who provided incredibly valuable feedback on that rewrite—Aurora Nibley, Stacey Trombley, Xiran Jay, Erin Luken, Yamile Méndez, Rania, Natasha, you’re all rock stars, and I’m super grateful for all your feedback.

I also need to express a million thanks to my agent, Suzie Townsend, and her assistant, Cassandra Baim. My debut year was a bumpy ride, and I’m so, so grateful to them both for helping fix problems, explain things, smooth things over, and just generally being amazing.

Thanks to my editor, Nicole Sclama, and the entire crew at HMH Teen, especially Leila for all my publicity stuff, Tara Sonin for being a bubble of wonderful energy and getting things done, Tara Shanahan, Veronica, Emma, and everyone else involved in the HMH Teen fall 2018 tour for making an author dream of mine come true. I love you all, and I’m so grateful to everyone. Also thanks to the team at Raincoast Books, especially Federica, for all my Canadian publicity. You guys are awesome.

I wanted to thank everyone who kept me sane on my roller-coaster debut year and while I wrote this book. The Electric Eighteen group, for being a font of knowledge and support. Elly Blake, Sara Holland, Rebecca Sky for your wonderful blurbs, your advice, and your kindness. Rachel Lynn Solomon and Lianne Oelke for doing events with me and making launch WAY less terrifying. All the Pacific Northwest writers who came to my book launches to support me! You’re all wonderful. And all my friends and family who came to the launch, you’re all the best.

I also need to thank Julia Ember and Laura Lam for the industry perspective and wisdom I so desperately needed in my debut year, and for putting up with all my anxious shit while I bumbled around Edinburgh. I also want to thank the lovely people I met in the Edinburgh writing meet ups and the operator for my tour of the Scottish Highlands for all his kelpie stories.

Thanks also to the book bloggers, bookstagrammers, librarians, bookstore employees, and other people who recommended and talked about Not Even Bones and Only Ashes Remain. All of you make this dream possible.

Finally, thanks to everyone who kept me sane in some way on this journey. In no particular order, special thanks to Julia Ember, Xiran Jay, Judy Lin, and Kim Smejkal.

Last, a million thanks as always to my family, who’s so supportive. To my grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins who flew out for my debut launch, to my parents for buying and giving away copies of my book and for always being encouraging about a very unstable career choice.

And thank you to all of you, my readers, for supporting me. I hope you enjoy this book!