Making a debut happen is not just readers, but everyone in the author’s karass. My kid, the absolute jackpot best funniest most interesting human being to ever live, who I’m so lucky to parent. I wanted to show you that, in our family, we live our dreams. My husband and my mom, both of whom did everything possible to support me, and kept my kid from interrupting me too often. Babe, thanks for fake dating me that one time so I could live out a romance trope. Mom, I know you’ve read more romance novels than anyone else on Earth, and I hope you like this one. My sister Jill, who let me borrow her Hebrew name and her hair for my main character. My Linda, for inspiring me to write a butch dreamboat. My best friend Aidinha, who talked me through at least one car panic attack where I tried to quit writing forever. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, who wrote with me on Zoom through an entire pandemic summer. Joy Manesiotis, who made me promise I would never give up writing. I did give up, for twelve years, but I came back, because that promise wouldn’t let me go. Bill McDonald, Dr. Bob Smith, and Lois Wilson (not you, Bill Wilson, you shut up), for building the institutions that built me.

Thank you to romance novels and novelists, for giving me a writing home I didn’t think I’d ever find. And to four guys from West Virginia who inspired me to tell stories again, when I thought I was long done. You taught me to choose joy and do good recklessly, that I was a fully realized creation and I was going to be amazing.

And as always and forever, to my beloved Clytemnestra. Your turn is coming, I promise.

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A Letter from the Author

My Dear Reader,

This is my first novel, and as is perhaps often the case with first books, many of the themes in it are deeply personal to me. Among those, one of the most resonant is finding your home. My home, wherever I’ve made it, has never been complete without cats. While drafting Season of Love, my family lost our beloved tortoiseshell Manx. It was important to me to include a tortie in the book in some way, in her memory.

Most tortoiseshells are female, with boys accounting for only about one in three thousand. They’re a genetic anomaly. As a lifelong parent to a parade of rescued tailless cats, I have a soft spot for feline mutants, and I was taken by the idea of a cat who was a good luck charm for Carrigan’s Christmasland.