Acknowledgments

To my elementary school librarian,
who took me under her wing,
and turned me into a reader.
Thanks, Mrs. Shapiro,
wherever you are!

Acknowledgments

Everfound, and the entire Skinjacker Trilogy, has been a fantastic journey to write, and there were many people who made thate journey possible. First and foremost, I’d like to thank my editor, David Gale, as well as Justin Chanda, Navah Wolfe, Paul Crichton, and everyone at Simon & Schuster for believing in these books. Thanks to my parents for always being there for me, and to my children, Brendan, Jarrod, Erin—and especially Joelle, who read my early draft of Everfound, and gave me great editorial notes.

Thanks to Chris Goethals for being amazingly supportive, through Everfound’s birth pangs and a constant source of light. My deepest gratitude to my assistant, Wendy Doyle, who worked tirelessly doing everything from transcribing my incoherent ramblings to finding Russian and Swahili translations (even though I ended up never using the Swahili). And while I’m on the subject of translation, thanks to Gabriela Hebin, for correcting my questionable Spanish.

Thanks to Andrea Brown, Trevor Engelson, Nick Osborne, Shep Rosenman, Lee Rosenbaum, and Danny Greenberg, who keep my career from sinking to the center of the earth. Also a heartfelt thank you to Naketha Mattocks, Allison Thomas, Gary Ross, and Jeff Kirschenbaum for having the vision to see these books as films, and the passion to make it happen someday.

I’d like to thank Daniel J. Grossman for his airship website (airships.net), which has amazing information on the Hindenburg.

Thanks to Brody Kelley, Amber Loranger, Alex Easton, and all my other Facebook fans and Twitter followers for spreading the word about these books.

And thanks to that kid who asked, “What happens to a skinjacker who gets unwound?” That’s the way to keep an author on his toes!

Prologue: Allie the Outcast’s FAQs

If you’ve just woken up to find yourself in Everlost, you might be scared and confused. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay. Sort of. They call me Allie the Outcast, and I’ve put together a list of frequently asked questions for new arrivals. It’s a pretty good idea to read them, even if you’ve been in Everlost for a while, because in Everlost it’s so easy to forget. . . .

What is Everlost?