Wow. Where to start? If you follow me online, you know the last two years have been rough for me. I was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2017 after several years of a variety of unexplained health issues. The diagnosis was a complete shock. I had likely been having seizures for several years (if not longer), but because they were not the typical convulsive seizures you see on TV, I never would have guessed. Even once I had a diagnosis, it took a long time (and an intense hospitalization) to find medications that would curtail my seizures. In a strange way, I felt like past me had written Roar knowing what was coming. Because I felt very much like I was caught up in a never-ending storm, and it was completely outside my control. For a while, I was not sure I would ever be able to have a life resembling the one I had before.
But after a lot of time and patience and help from my loved ones, I’ve managed to reclaim my life, albeit with some limitations. I owe more than everything to my parents, who sat with me in the hospital, and while the meds made me miserably sick. They filled in all the gaps of my life when I could no longer drive or do simple things like go to the grocery store or take myself to the doctor or even walk my dog. They gave and gave and gave, and I honestly would not have made it without them. The same is true of my sisters and my cousin Jared and my best friends—Jay Crownover, Lindsay Ehrhardt, and Bethany Salminen. You guys held me together when everything was falling apart. More love to friends Joey, Victoria, Shelly, Meredith, Heather, JLA, Ana, Megan, Val, Amber, Kami, and so many more. I have to thank my neurologist, Lakshmi Mukundan, who diagnosed me, and who is the kindest, most nurturing, and truly caring doctor I have ever met. I am so glad you came into my life. Tara Ryan, you were an oasis in the chaos, and I am so grateful.
And God bless Tor Teen. I missed deadline after deadline because my brain just did not work the same way anymore, and they were so patient and caring and understanding. I was under a tremendous amount of stress, and they were always looking for ways to build me up and support me, rather than add to that stress. That is remarkably rare in this business. So thank you to everyone at Tor who worked on my book in any way—my new editor Melissa Frain, and my original editor Whitney Ross, along with my publicist Saraciea, my copyeditor MaryAnn, my cover designer John Blumen, and of course, the queen of it all, Kathleen Doherty. Thank you doesn’t seem big enough, but it’s all I have.
Similarly, the team at New Leaf Literary have always been fierce champions at my side. Thank you to Suzie Townsend, Sara Stricker, Cassandra Baim, Mia Roman, Veronica Grijalva, Dani Segelbaum, and everyone else. Also to KP Simmon—you might be my publicist, but you were my friend first, and I’m so glad for it.
For the Stormlings, my Roar street team—thank you all so much for loving these characters and this world with me. It was such a huge deal to me to fulfill this dream, and you guys worked so hard to make it the best release it could possibly be. And you’re just crazy cool people. And to all of you reading this. I know it was a long wait for this book. Thank you for your patience and your support and all the kind words and encouragement. You got me through so many hard days.