Acknowledgments

Thank you to everyone at Harper Muse, including Amanda Bostic, Jodi Hughes, Becky Monds, Nekasha Pratt, Margaret Kercher, Taylor Ward, Halie Cotton, Savannah Summers, Laura Wheeler, and Kimberly Carlton, for your help in bringing this book to life. An extra thank-you to Kim for so carefully and thoughtfully reading this story and offering feedback that helped me strengthen it even more. Thank you to the sales team for your hard work getting books into the hands of readers, and to Julee Schwarzburg for your editing prowess, for making me a better writer, and for helping me figure my way out of all those timeline knots. Thank you to Karen Solem for always being willing to jump on the phone to help me brainstorm and work my way out of sticky corners.

Thank you to Erik I. Johnson, Director of Bird Conservation for Louisiana Audubon, and to Nicole Love, Coastal Coordinator for Alabama Audubon, for answering my questions about birdwatching along the coast and for giving me information that helped me create Violet’s passion for coastal birds.

This book was a hot messy mess (Lindsey, I think you helped me coin that perfectly appropriate term!), and I had a lot of help transforming it into what you’re holding now. Thank you to Anna Gresham and Holly Mackle for the brainstorming and for helping me get the characters out of the parking lot (even if that parking lot scene is nowhere to be found in the final version!). Thanks for being my partners in writing and life. Thanks also to Lindsey Brackett for the Voxer commiseration, encouragement, and laughter. Thank you to my sweet husband, Matt Denton, and our girls, Kate and Sela, for sharing in this writing life with me and reminding me to close the computer and have some fun sometimes! Thank you to all the Kofflers and Dentons and friends who message me to tell me when they’ve read my books or passed them on to others.

To all the booksellers and librarians who introduce readers to my books, thank you, thank you. And a special thank-you to my favorite local bookstores, Little Professor in Homewood, Alabama, and Page & Palette in Fairhope, Alabama, for being so supportive, welcoming, and fun! Thanks to the entire Bookstagram community, a tireless and enthusiastic group of book champions who give so much support to authors like me. And thanks to all you readers who read my stories then tell your friends and daughters and babysitters and tennis partners and strangers at the pool about them. I appreciate you so much and wouldn’t be putting these stories out into the world if it weren’t for you!

About the Author

Angie Davis Photography

Lauren K. Denton is the author of the USA TODAY bestselling novels The Hideaway and Hurricane Season. She was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, and now lives with her husband and two daughters in Homewood, just outside Birmingham. Though her husband tries valiantly to turn her into a mountain girl, she’d still rather be at the beach.