First and foremost, I’d like to extend a very special thank-you to Robert Hanley (NASA Flight Operations) for his helpful—and entertaining!—information about all things astronautical. If anything I’ve written seems off-kilter to the NASA nerds (Renee’ Ross, I’m looking at you) who may be reading, let’s just blame Robert, shall we? Oh, all right. Let’s not. My conscience won’t allow it. The fact is, I may have taken a few liberties here and there. It’s what fiction writers do. But the kidney stone? That we can safely blame on Robert.
Second, thank you to my brother Eddie for introducing me to Robert. (See above.)
Third, thank you to my other two brothers, Steve and Rick, so they won’t think I’m playing favorites.
Fourth, thank you once again to my mother for the “God punishes right away” thing. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of it over the years. Plus, if I mentioned all my brothers and left her out, no telling what The Big Guy Upstairs might do to me.
Special thanks to Karla “Kuddles” Nellenbach, aka “Grumpy Bear,” the sweet … er, I mean totally badass cruise director for the Ciel Halligan Advance Reader Copy tours. She’s the one who sees to it that an ARC gets mailed through the pipeline from one volunteer early reader to the next. Speaking of which, thank you to all my early readers! You guys are the best.
My eternal gratitude goes (again) to my generous crew of critique partners, beta readers, and cheerleaders: Elise Skidmore, Kris Reekie, Julie Kentner, Sarah Meral, Tiffany Schmidt, Tawna Fenske, Emily Hainsworth, and Sara Walker. You guys have saved me from more typos and continuity blunders than I’ll ever admit to publicly. (Oh, wait. I guess I just did. Oops.) Of course, some mistakes always slip through, no matter how many eyes search for them. What can I say? It’s like some sort of law in the publishing universe.
Additionally, I’d like to thank my lovely niece, Allie Cappelli, for the family discount on proofreading. There’s more pumpkin-spice pound cake where that came from.
My heartfelt gratitude goes once more to the members of Team Ciel: Super-Agent Michelle Wolfson, Editor Extraordinaire Melissa Frain, Editorial Assistant par Excellence Amy Stapp, and the host of other Tor denizens who have made it possible for me to share Ciel’s stories with you. You guys rock!
Finally, thank you to Bob, always and forever the keeper of my heart.