Pixie kisses (the good kind) to Bruce Barnard, Lew Barnard, Betty Morse, Rena Morse, and Debbie Gelinas for being the best family and the goofiest family ever. Thank you for being made of awesome, Mom.
Thanks to Emily for making it a hard choice between Team Nick and Team Astley. You are amazing. Remember Heppy! I love you. You’re the best kid ever. And yes, I know how lucky I am.
Thanks to my own John Wayne. You are the only cowboy I could ever want and the best man in the universe. Thank you for giving me faith in how good men can be.
Thanks to Shaun Farrar for teaching me all about the beauty of chili cheese fries.
The magnificent Jennifer Osborn, Lori Bartlett, Melodye Shore, Kelly Fineman, Steven Wedel, Tami Lewis Brown, Devyn Burton, and Carrie Randall all earn a warrior’s place in Valhalla for giving me the confidence to keep writing. Special props go to Steve because he made me fall in love with writing all over again. And then again!
Thanks to Perry Moore for giving me the magical cowboy hat that allowed me to continue to write the series. Honestly, sometimes a writer just needs a magical cowboy hat to keep going.
Thanks to Marie Overlock for giving me the best surprise retro-kitty gift ever and for making me laugh when I’m being a big perfectionist goody-goody tool, and to Shaun Farrar, Amelie Bacon, Jim Willis, Ken Mitchell, Travis Frost, Lorraine Bracey, Leigh Guildford, Kevin Edgecomb, Lori Bartlett, Ryan Lawson, Jack Raymond, Debbie Hogan, Perry Moore, Alice Dow, Callie Cox, Matt Heel, Chad Campbell, Lori Bartlett, Dotty Vachon, Evelyn Foster, Bethany Reynolds, Stephanie Preble Vickburg, Bubba Duncan, Caroline Peters, Belinda Albee, Lea Feldman, Megan Kelley Hall, Rod O’Connor, Will Rice, Dale Jackson, and Karen Heaney. All of you have said something or done something that made this book into what it is and made me into what I am. You probably don’t know that though. Shh… Don’t tell.
To the women of the tollbooth and to Vermont College of Fine Arts: you all are the best, the best ever. Thank you for helping me to be a better writer. Special shout-outs to Tami Brown and Chris Maselli and The Awesome Emily Wing Smith, the Whirligigs, the PWs, and Tamra Wright and Robin MacCready.
There is no person I need to thank more than Edward Necarsulmer. This time it’s for being tireless, for letting me almost kill him on a road trip to the Outback, for wearing flannel, for being the best knight/agent a writer could ever want, and for actually being proud enough of me that he bragged to the waitress. You are golden. “Think of me as a place.” And to his awesome and amazing coworker/sidekick/human Christa Heschke, who is beyond wonderful.
Strong woman thanks to Michelle Nagler, who is an editor of awesome, for making this a book, a real book with a real structure, and for being delightful in real life. I am insanely jealous of your voice and yet I still adore you.
To the rest of the amazing, stunning, exceptional, and incredibly caring Bloomsbury U.S. crew-Deb Shapiro, Melanie Cecka, Caroline Abbey, Beth Eller, Kate Lied, Katie Fee, and the people I don’t actually get names for. You are all so incredible. Thank you for taking such good care of me and my books. I’m sorry if I sometimes make it hard. And thanks to the exceptionally awesome Bloomsbury UK staff as well. But most especially thanks to Deb for guarding my heart.
Special thanks to Nicole Gastonguay who makes covers that are so stunning that people pick up the books. You are an artist. I am in awe.
And thank you to all the people who read the books and love them enough to send me e-mails and message me on Facebook. You all make it worth it every single day.
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