Tina Connolly - Ironskin

Jane obeyed, though crooked scarcely mattered now. She would always be this Jane and it would always be plain on her face. This Jane who had fought the fey and survived, this Jane who was taking their power for herself.

And the first thing she would do was restore human faces to all those pretty ladies, make them safe against the fey.

For on the wall above, those rows of masks still leered. A hundred faces, and each one a human, somewhere. A race between Jane and the dead Queen’s followers.

It was a mission. It was her purpose.

This Jane was meant to fight.

The red blood splattered the floor like drops of paint. Dorie’s fingers crept around, smoothing the ironskin mask of her face. Jane closed her eyes and let the girl adjust her eyelids, felt the cold iron, hard and comforting against the bone.

Her hand crept to her left just as Edward’s foot found hers. Her fingers touched his elbow, his ankle her ankle, as Poule and Dorie worked above them, deft and sure.

Soon, soon, she would be whole again.

Where to begin with this enormous pile of thanks? I feel very fortunate to have received so much help and advice and (constructive) criticism over the years, and I hope to continue to pay that forward.

A big thank-you to my treasured and overworked second readers, K. Bird Lincoln and Caroline M. Yoachim, who have each read nearly everything ever, including novels that will continue to live in a drawer.

Another thanks to the rest of my novel reader/critiquers, including Josh English and Mischa DeNola, who read this particular novel, and Tinatsu Wallace, Meghan Sinoff, Julie McGalliard, Gord Sellar, Ian McHugh, David A. Simons, Nicole Gresham, and Shawn Scarber, who read others. A thanks to K. D. Wentworth, who loved the original novelette, which sparked the idea of turning it into a novel, and thanks to someone who pointed out that the original story was trying to be Jane Eyre . I have no idea who that was. Hey, thanks to Charlotte Brontë while I’m at it. I loved Villette .

I am also grateful for the support of the Clarion West class of 2006 as a whole with its awesome group of students, teachers, and administrators (including Tristan, who graciously let me use his last name for the bolsters), and the local PDX writers crew (including Camille Alexa, at whose Vermont writing retreat I wrote a large chunk of Ironskin [2K every morning before heading out to eat cheese.])

Enormous thanks to my rock star agent, Ginger Clark, for her hard work and keen eye, to everyone at Tor and Curtis Brown for their support, and especially to Melissa Frain for loving this novel in the first place and then giving me a billion brilliant insights on how to make it into what it was meant to be all along.

And of course to my wonderful family, who told me I was going to grow up to be a writer long before I knew it—Mom, Dad, Mike, Amy, Andy, Rick, and Grandmere & Papa, who would have loved to see it happen. My husband, Eric, who kept me focused and talked me off of ledges and read me poetry. And the new baby, who hasn’t really helped my writing at all, but is awfully cute.

All that and I’m still going to miss someone. Sorry. I blame the new baby for eating my brain.