Something that always keeps me going when I am writing a book is the prospect of getting to write this specific section—a joyful part of the process where I get to express some of my gratitude to the many people who make it possible for me to do this work. The list is long and by necessity incomplete, especially for this book, which I wrote during what I would call a . . . very difficult time. So before I begin, what I would say is that I end this book with a heart full of gratitude and a head full of names, many of which cannot appear here.

That includes the names of so many readers, bloggers, booksellers, and librarians—you are always the first! Thank you so much for the pleasure you take in books, and thank you for the work you do to share them with the world. Thank you for your notes of encouragement and excitement, which mean more to me than I can say. I hope you loved Will and Nora, and I am so grateful for the support you have shown to me and to my work.

Every time I finish a project, I send it along to my editor, Esi Sogah, and my agent, Taylor Haggerty, with a happy closing line of “We did it!” Both of these incredible women usually try to correct me, to say that I’m the one who did it, but I’d like to state for the record (it’s in print now!) that they are both incredibly wrong. In the first place, both of them usually have to spatula me off a parking lot of despair at the halfway point; in the second, both of them are sharp readers and savvy coaches, and I am so grateful to them both. Taylor, thank you especially for your total faith in me and your regular, cheerful reminders that I am, in fact, doing okay. Esi, you belong in many places of this acknowledgments section but I know you’ll edit me to keep it all up here, so I’ll just say: you’re the best “quaranteam” partner a gal could have, and I treasure you as a colleague and as a dear friend.