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Back The Mother Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (84)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. HALLOWEEN
  6. Seven Weeks Before Halloween
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. HALLOWEEN
  11. Six Weeks Before Halloween
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. HALLOWEEN
  16. Five Weeks Before Halloween
  17. SEVEN
  18. EIGHT
  19. HALLOWEEN
  20. NINE
  21. TEN
  22. HALLOWEEN
  23. ELEVEN
  24. TWELVE
  25. Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween
  26. THIRTEEN
  27. FOURTEEN
  28. HALLOWEEN
  29. FIFTEEN
  30. SIXTEEN
  31. SEVENTEEN
  32. EIGHTEEN
  33. NINETEEN
  34. TWENTY
  35. HALLOWEEN
  36. Eighteen Days Until Halloween
  37. TWENTY-ONE
  38. TWENTY-TWO
  39. HALLOWEEN
  40. TWENTY-THREE
  41. TWENTY-FOUR
  42. Eleven Days Until Halloween
  43. TWENTY-FIVE
  44. TWENTY-SIX
  45. Eight Days Until Halloween
  46. TWENTY-SEVEN
  47. TWENTY-EIGHT
  48. TWENTY-NINE
  49. HALLOWEEN
  50. THIRTY
  51. Four Days Until Halloween
  52. THIRTY-ONE
  53. HALLOWEEN
  54. THIRTY-TWO
  55. Two Days Until Halloween
  56. THIRTY-THREE
  57. The Night Before Halloween
  58. THIRTY-FOUR
  59. HALLOWEEN
  60. THIRTY-FIVE
  61. Halloween, Present Day
  62. THIRTY-SIX
  63. THIRTY-SEVEN
  64. HALLOWEEN
  65. THIRTY-EIGHT
  66. HALLOWEEN
  67. THIRTY-NINE
  68. HALLOWEEN
  69. FORTY
  70. HALLOWEEN
  71. FORTY-ONE
  72. FORTY-TWO
  73. FORTY-THREE
  74. FORTY-FOUR
  75. HALLOWEEN... NOW
  76. FORTY-FIVE
  77. Seven Months Later
  78. FORTY-SIX
  79. FORTY-SEVEN
  80. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  81. ALICE SWANSON’S
  82. Reader's Guide
  83. Questions for Discussion
  84. Booklist

In case you need it someday.

The applause is loud now, bursting out. People are standing, clusters here and there, until half the stadium is giving me a standing ovation.

In three months, I’ll be in a dorm with a mini refrigerator and my own desk and bed. I’ll share the room with a new friend, and we’ll swap clothes and class notes and gossip.

It will be wonderful.

You see, I know how to keep a secret.

Mom turns. The sun glints off her glasses. She raises her hand. Maybe it’s a wave. Maybe it’s just to swat away a bug. She goes back to the car. And then she’s gone, driving out of the stadium. Disappearing.

Yes, I know how to keep a secret.

For a while anyway.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not exist without both the persistence and the patience of my amazing editor, Melanie Fried. I’m eternally grateful to her for the honest feedback and for pushing me to make this book the best it could be. They say the second novel is the hardest to write, and they are very correct. Throw in a global pandemic, and you’ve got the perfect storm of frustration. Without Melanie, I’d be curled in a ball in a corner somewhere, weeping endlessly.

In fact, I need to thank all of the tireless team at Graydon House and HarperCollins, most especially publicist Justine Sha, marketing manager Pamela Osti, and Alexandra Niit, who designed my amazingly creepy cover.

I also need to thank my best friend, Beth Fiencke, for the initial brainstorming session over pizza that helped generate the kernels of this book. The character I named after you is nothing like you, don’t worry (well, except for the sweet tooth).

Even though I haven’t been able to see them in person for a very long time, I need to give virtual hugs to many people who offered words of encouragement, advice, or general inspiration. First off, my wonderful agent, Michelle Richter, who talked me down from many cliffs. Thank you to Jenn Allen and Helen Boorman for the inspiration fairies and magical unicorns. I owe so much to my writer friends, most especially Ed Aymar, John Copenhaver, Alan Orloff, and LynDee Walker. Thank you to early readers Kathleen Barber, Andrea Bartz, Alison Gaylin, Karen Hamilton, Hannah Mary McKinnon, and Lori Rader-Day for their amazing words of support for the book. Cheers to the Thursday Night Write Group in the Chessie Chapter of Sisters in Crime—I didn’t get there often, but I appreciated seeing your (Zoom) faces when I did. And thank you to the bookstagrammers and book reviewers everywhere, especially Dany Drexler and Kristopher Zgorski, for being voracious readers and champions of writers.