acknowledgments

thank you to my lifesaving, miracle-performing agent, sarah landis: every step i’ve taken on this

journey has been lighter with you by my side. thank you to my brilliant, insightful, and

compassionate editor, stephanie stein: you have helped me tell the best version of this story.

thank you to sam bradbury, my fairy godmother across the pond: three down and hopefully

many more to come.

thank you to sophie schmidt, editorial assistant extraordinaire, and to the rest of the team at

harper for helping to bring this book into the world. thank you to katie boni, sabrina abballe,

julia tyler, james neel, erin desalvatore, mark rifkin, and chloe bollentin. thank you to

everyone at del rey uk for yet another one. i’m incredibly lucky to be surrounded by some of the

best people in the industry.

as always, to my gsj, allison saft and rachel morris: i could not have dreamed up more

wonderful friends. the hive mind is real. thank you for filling my life with humor and

unconditional love.

to manning sparrow and sophie cohen: every day i’m grateful that, by some propitious

internet algorithms, we were able to find each other. manning, thank you for more than ten years

(!) of loving, funny, through-and-through friendship. sophie, thank you for coming into my life at

just the right time and holding my hand through some of my bleakest moments.

thank you to grace li, one of the brightest things under the california sun—here’s to a

million more coffee dates. thank you to courtney gould for always being a shoulder to lean on

and a reason to smile.

to all the absurdly talented authors who have held my hand and shared their wisdom with me

throughout this journey: i’m still pinching myself that i get to count you as colleagues and friends.

melissa albert, rory power, kendare blake, erin a. craig, vaishnavi patel, rachel griffin, isabel

ibañez, sasha peyton smith, alix e. harrow, and rebecca ross: thank you for reading, blurbing,

and loving.

thank you to the booksellers, bloggers, and influencers for sharing their enthusiasm and

helping this book reach its audience. i’m forever grateful especially to joseline diaz, kalie

barnes-young, brittany smith, and bridey morris.

to james. thank you for not being afraid to love me, for always believing me, for reminding

me what’s real. i don’t know how to begin unraveling everything my head thinks and my heart

feels. hopefully this book is a good start. i love you.

and to zelda: i remember you. i believe you.