ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, in acknowledging the people who helped me reach this point in my writerly life, I must mention the creative writing teachers in my past who armed me with the necessary tools of my trade. Those wonderful scholars were James Forsyth, Dr. Gary Crew, Dr. Ross Watkins, Dr. Roslyn Petelin, Dr. Kim Wilkins, Dr. Camilla Nelson, and Dr. Christine De Matos and their colleagues. Without you all, I would never have become what I am.

I will forever be indebted to the founding members of Team Fox, those sassy ladies Gaby Naher, Bev Cousins, Nikki Christer, Jessica Malpass, and Kathryn Knight. Thank you for listening to me, believing in me, and putting up with me. I admire you all more than you will ever know.

To those other wonderful publishing people all across the world who have joined the team, I owe you just as much. Some of you include Lisa Gallagher, Lou Ryan, Jerry Kalajian, Kristin Sevick, Linda Quinton, Michaela Hamilton, Thomas Wortche, Susan Sandon, Selina Walker, and the rest of you know who you are.

Thank you to my fellow author buddies Adrian McKinty and James Patterson for always being ready to lend an ear.

All my love and thanks to my readers all over the world, who never leave me feeling lonely or unappreciated. I have treasured every review, letter, and comment, and it has been so wonderful meeting some of you in real life.

And as always, to my wonderful Tim. Thank you for being there whenever I needed you, word by word and page by page. You are a true delight in my life.

Excerpt: Gone by Midnight

Read on for a preview of

Gone by Midnight

Candice Fox

Available in March 2020 by Tom Doherty Associates

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A Forge Hardcover ISBN 9781250317582

The real trouble came at midnight.

Martin Askin had arrived in Cairns at five o’clock in the afternoon and checked into room 607, dumping his bags on the floor and marching to the windows to yank down the blinds. He’d stood in the room in the dim light, surveying the crisply made bed and the desk neatly arranged with the room service menu, daring there to be some sign of trouble. A forgotten bar of soap in the immaculate bathroom. An unemptied bin.

His plane had sat inexplicably on the tarmac at LAX for forty-five minutes before takeoff, and again for half an hour at Sydney Airport, adding more than an hour onto an already seventeen-hour haul in economy. A flight attendant had spilled hot tea in his lap somewhere over the Pacific, and the plane’s toilets had been malfunctioning, filling the back half of the plane with a wretched stench. His taxi driver from Cairns Airport had got lost for ten minutes on the drive to the hotel, and at the reception desk the computer had frozen just before his key could be assigned.

If one more thing went wrong, Martin Askin was going to lose it.