I owe everything I am and everything I have to my parents, Jean Kilbourne and Thomas Lux. Mom, “Thank you” is too weak for all that you’ve done for me and for the world, but I’ve yet to find the words strong enough. I love you. Thank you to Lucy Cleland, my outstanding agent, for your brilliance, patience, and incredible ability to simultaneously rein me in and keep me confident. It is your faith in me that led to this. To everyone at Berkley who has helped turn this computer document into an actual book, namely Lauren Burnstein, Candice Coote, Elisha Katz, Christine Legon, Jessica Mangicaro, Vi-An Nguyen, Tara O’Connor, Jane Steele, and Dan Walsh: you have no idea what you’ve done for me. Thank you for making my wildest hope a physical reality. And to my editor, Jen Monroe: you are the stuff of dreams. I am so grateful for and humbled by your belief in these characters, their story, and me. You changed my life completely, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here. To Rachel Bronstein and Eva Chertow, my Ideal Readers and first sets of eyes on every project: I write for you. Thank you for knowing me before I knew myself, and never letting me forget it. In addition, to Rhea Ghosh, the Gomes-Voss family, Max Haimowitz, Elizabeth Kramer, Benjamin Kramer, Evan Kuester, Jonathan Lord, Liza McVinney, Cameron Njaa, Hannah Palmer, Sydney Read, and Julianna Sweeney (and the whole Sweeney family!): thank you for your insights, your encouragement, and, most of all, your friendship. None of this would’ve happened without all of your support, including my existence as a functional human being. Thank you to my small but mighty writing group, Lori Kendall and James Golsan, for cheering Pey on from the very beginning, and me too. To my research, grammar, and consultation dream team, Thomas Connor, Philip Glover, and my beloved stepmom, Jennifer Holley Lux: Hell wouldn’t be complete without your professional/intellectual insights. Thanks for answering all of my late-night texts. Thank you to the Emerson/Guerard family, for the summers spent on Newfound Lake, in a home so full of magic I had to write about it. To Rebecca Pollard-Pierik, thank you for going into the tunnel with me. I am forever grateful for the guidance from all of my teachers and mentors, especially Craig Dorfman, Mittie Knox, Jeff McDaniel, and Victoria Redel. As my father said, “You make the thing because you love the thing, and you love the thing because someone else loved it enough to make you love it.” Thank you to all the writers who loved the thing so doggedly, so rapturously, and so brilliantly that they made me love it too.

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