Expanding the world of the Inheritance Games series and getting to spend more time with these characters has brought me so much joy, so I want to start by thanking every single reader whose passion for these characters has given me the opportunity to think big and continue writing in this world that I love so much.
To everyone at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you have done to get these books into so many hands. I am constantly in awe of this team’s brilliance and creativity; I feel like the luckiest author in the world to have such a powerhouse team behind me, doing everything they can to get books into readers’ hands.
Thanks especially to my editor, Lisa Yoskowitz, who is a joy to work with and such an incredible advocate for me as an author and for these books. Lisa came up with title for this one, and her keen editorial insights helped me take it from a draft that I liked to a book that I LOVE. Some of my favorite moments in this book came about based on Lisa’s suggestions, and it’s hard to overstate how comforting it is as an author to work with an editor whose intuitions, insights, and feedback make me feel like I can shoot for the stars every time, because I know that together, we’ll get there.
So much goes in to making a book; the words on the page are just the beginning. My publishing team, led by the amazing Megan Tingley and Jackie Engel, is so incredibly good at their jobs that some mornings I just wake up thinking “HOW ARE THEY SO GOOD?” I am incredibly grateful to everyone at Little, Brown who helped bring this book to life and get it into readers’ hands, including Marisa Finkelstein, Andy Ball, Caitlyn Averett, Alex Houdeshell, Virginia Lawther, Becky Munich, Jess Mercado, Cheryl Lew, Kelly Moran, Shawn Foster, Danielle Cantarella, Claire Gamble, Leah CollinsLipsett, Celeste Gordon, Anna Herling, Katie Tucker, Karen Torres, Cara Nesi, Janelle DeLuise, Hannah Koerner, Lisa Cahn, Victoria Stapleton, and Christie Michel. Special thanks go out to cover designer Karina Granda and artist Katt Phatt for the absolutely gorgeous cover, and to Emilie Polster, Bill Grace, and Savannah Kennelly for their amazing efforts to find fun ways to bring Inheritance Games fans together and build anticipation for this book—and everything that comes next!
Thank you also to everyone who helped copyedit or proofread this book. As it turns out, the more books you write set in the same fictional universe, the more there is to look out for, and I am grateful to Erin Slonaker, Jody Corbett, Su Wu, Marisa Finkelstein (again!), and Lisa Yoskowitz (again!) for their attention to detail and helping me keep the whole Inheritance Games universe in order!
To my agent, Elizabeth Harding, thank you so much for guiding and championing my career for nearly twenty years now. Having you in my corner means the world to me! Thank you also to Sarah Perillo, who has sold foreign and translation rights into a mind-boggling thirty countries so far, and to Holly Frederick for her work toward bringing the Inheritance Games to the screen. Thanks also to the rest of my amazing team at Curtis Brown, including Eliza Johnson, Eliza Leung, Madeline Tavis, Jahlila Stamp, and Michaela Glover.
Thank you to Rachel Vincent, who sat across from me at Panera once a week while I was writing this book and got me through the highs and the lows that go along with the writing process. And thank you also, Rachel, for being willing to listen to ALL THE SECRETS about what’s to come in the world of the Inheritance Games and for being such a brilliant, supportive, amazing, and genuinely kind friend. I don’t know what I would do without you!
The Brothers Hawthorne was the first one I wrote from scratch after leaving my day job as a college professor, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my family for helping me through that transition. To my boys, my parents, and my husband—thank you!