The In-Between Hour was written during a succession of personal crises that helped me dig deep to connect with my characters...but created horrible hiccups with deadlines. Never-ending gratitude for the support of my amazing agent, Nalini Akolekar of Spencerhill Associates, and huge thanks to the team at Harlequin MIRA for enabling me to put family first.
I was blessed to work with not one but two MIRA editors on this novel. To Miranda Indrigo, thank you for believing in my beloved Will. To Emily Ohanjanians, thank you for graciously leading me toward a better story, for not letting me take shortcuts, for suggesting I put Will on the rock and for loving Jacob as much as I do. Your revisions inspired me.
Group hug with my brothers- and sisters-in-arms at Book Pregnant, especially cofounders Lydia Netzer and Sophie Perinot, and my personal heroine, Anne Clinard Barnhill. Wiley described us as a wolf pack. Oh, we are. I can’t imagine being on this journey without you guys. (Besides, I get to bask in your publishing glory.)
Thanks to fellow MIRA authors Pamela Morsi and Rebecca Coleman for adopting the clueless newbie, and to Laura Drake and Laura Spinella, who never hide from emails that scream, Help! Special thanks—with penance—to Charmi Schroeder, whom I forgot to mention last time.
Thank you to the local booksellers who have helped make the transition to published author fun and memorable, especially the staff at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill and Sharon Wheeler at Purple Crow Books in Hillsborough.
Thank you to everyone who helped with research and apologies for any facts I have mangled: thank you to Jennifer Carruthers, Kelly Hammer and Loran Smith for trying to explain climbing to someone who’s terrified of heights; thank you to Perrin Hammond Heartway for showing me the life of a holistic vet; thank you to Bonnie Hauser and Marilee Mctigue for all things Orange County; thank you to Steve Barrell, Lisa Brown and Steve Rogat for helping me understand what it means to be an empath. Sergeant Butch Clark, thank you for the information on Project Lifesaver; Lori Hilliard—thank you for helping with tree identification! To Dan Hill, thank you for teaching me batshit insane and such great phrases as Teflon-coated procrastination. (Where would I be without my Dan file?) Thanks to Dr. Jack Naftel and Laura Catherine Newton in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, of the University of North Carolina. And endless gratitude to Caroline Furman, Kathleen Gleiter, Harriet Ling, Della Pollock, Maureen Sherbondy, Stephen Whitney and Carolyn Wilson for helping me find—and understand—this story.
Special thanks to John Blackfeather Jeffries and his wife, Lynette Jeffries, for sharing their memories, photographs and scrapbooks. I wish I could spend all day every day listening to both of you talk. And apologies for pushing the 2013 powwow into October to fit my story!
Thank you—and thank you again—to my writing partners Elizabeth Brown and Sheryl Cornett, who helped brainstorm, read various versions of the manuscript and listened to all my freak-outs. Thank you to reader Karen Perizzolo, who picked up on so many details I had wrong and helped clarify the all-important birdsong issue. A million thanks to my beta reader, Leslie Gildersleeve, who gives brutal and brilliant feedback topped off with Friday-afternoon gin therapy. This one’s for you, girl.
Bowing and scraping to Julie Smith and her one-woman mission to sell TUG one book at a time—and for providing comfort food, and for helping me research depression and bipolar disorder. A friend indeed!
As always, thanks to my transatlantic village—friends and family on both sides of the pond, and a teary farewell to the staff and teachers of Camelot Academy in Durham, North Carolina.
Love and kisses to my mother, Anne Claypole White, chief cheerleader, and to my sister, Susan Rose, a gifted artist who has been entertaining me with her storytelling since I was a child. A wave to the memory of my father, Reverend Douglas Eric Claypole White, who passed on his fascination with Native American history and culture—and his sense of humor.
Mother/son hug for my award-winning poet, lyricist and musician, Zachariah Claypole White, who provided invaluable feedback, encouraged me to believe in my “quiet story that screams” and allowed me to steal “traveling faces” and “the space between emotions.” Please never ignore texts that say, Word choice emergency!
And to my husband, Lawrence Grossberg: I’m so glad you stalked me at JFK Airport twenty-seven years ago. Thank you for supporting a penniless writer and soldiering through domestic chaos so she could be a dreamer. (And for critiquing every blog post.) Without you—nothing.