ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not be a reality if I hadn’t taken my family to see Hamilton in New York City in June 2016. It was right after the Tonys and featured the original Broadway cast! (Except for the king, so to us Rory is the king, Jonathan who?) My ten-year-old daughter, Mattie, was so taken by the love story of Alex and Eliza that I was forced to do research to answer her questions and in doing so got caught up in their story as well. So I would like to thank Mattie, whose favorite character is Eliza (“Hamilton should be called Eliza, Mom; we wouldn’t know his story if she didn’t tell it”), for giving me the idea to write a book about their romance.

I would also like to thank my long-time editor, Jennifer Besser, for believing in this story from the first email. I heart you, Jen!!!! Thank you to everyone at Penguin for yet another awesome book together. Yay!

Many thanks to everyone at 3Arts including my agent, Richard Abate, and Rachel Kim, and everyone at Spilled Ink, especially my research assistants for making sure I didn’t take too many liberties with history. (Liberties—get it? Thanks for the joke, Leigh Bardugo!)

Not very much is known about Alex and Eliza’s romance, except that they fell hard and fast and were so in love that Eliza carried a poem he wrote for her in a necklace she wore until the day she died. Swoon. And so this is my fictional embellishment. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks to all my friends and family—you know who you are and I love you all.

And last but never least, thank you to my husband, Mike Johnston. I wrote a poem to him in our early courtship, too. (But he doesn’t like to wear necklaces. Man jewelry—shudder.)