But he’s gone before the words make it out of my lips.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” I scream to the void, because Thorne is gone, and he can’t hear me.

Chapter

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Acknowledgements

I read a lot of books, and I’m one of those weird readers who reads the acknowledgements every time (except if you leave me on a terrible cliffhanger! So, if you’re actuallly reading this after that ending, you’re a better human than me). Author acknowledgements always say some version of the same thing — blah, blah, blah, this book wouldn’t be possible without all my people. I’ll be honest, I’ve been skeptical of that. Skeptical of the outpouring of love from authors to what seems like an endless list of supporters. Now that I’ve written a book, however, I have an acute appreciation for this outpouring of thanks.

The reality is, the human creative process is not achieved independently. Creativity seems to be a sourcing of ideas from some larger collective, a participation in an iterative process that may start in my mind but certainly can’t be finished there. Every single aspect of getting this book into your hands involved help — from the truly incredible beta readers who gave me invaluable feedback, to my indie author friends who answered all my silly questions about the publishing process or recommended vendors, to the awesome community on bookstagram and booktok who helped hype the book and me. As I write this, I genuinely don’t even know where to begin to thank the dozens of people who brought Witch Queen together.

In many ways, this book is a love letter to bookstagram (sorry booktok, no shade, it’s just not where I started my journey). I have built such an incredible community over the last 2+ years, a community I barely knew existed and absolutely couldn’t appreciate how much I needed when I made my first book review post. It’s bookstagram that reinvigorated my love of reading, bookstagram that introduced me to the genre of fantasy romance and the concept of an independently published author. Bookstagram introduced me to almost every single beta reader for Witch Queen (except for my close friends and family who read it), and it’s where I sourced every vendor — from the editors to the artists. Ultimately, the bookstagram community is what inspired me to write a book in the first place, and gave me the confidence to keep going until it was published.

Thank you so much to my incredible team of beta readers. If they have a book social media, you should absolutely follow them.