Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“Not a chance in hell.” He stuffed the penis tiara onto his head, the veil tickling his neck, and pulled her up to standing. “Everybody in the neighborhood is about to know you’re marrying me. And wearing this thing, nobody is ever going to forget it.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book took a lot of help from a lot of people. All my thanks to the following folks:
To Naomi Davis, for being a stellar agent and fighting fiercely for all my books. This book is only on shelves today because you believed in it and put all your energy behind it at a time when many people would have hung it up for something safer. Thank you for helping me come up with the new ending, and giving me a necessary nudge to extend that one scene that shall remain unnamed. You make a killer muse.
To Kristine Swartz, for giving my book a home and the absolutely perfect title, and for knowing its complicated soul right away—you already knew how it should be presented without me having to say a word. You’ve been a dream to work with.
To Becca Wolf, for letting me borrow your wealth of horse knowledge, which outstrips my own severalfold, and for choosing the perfect location for Wild Falls, Montana.
To James McNorton III, for speaking so honestly, kindly, and openly to me about your experience with desegregation and race issues in Florida, California, and Idaho. You helped so much to inform the experience of my own fictional characters, and all remaining mistakes are my own.
To Nic Stone, for helping me get deeper into the experience of my characters than I was capable of doing on my own, and for articulating the issues with kindness and humor and an immense amount of compassion. This book is vastly better for your influence, but again, I’m certain I’ve still made mistakes and they’re all my own.
To Keyanna Butler, for all your help and insight on early drafts of this book.
To Layla Reyne, Andrea Contos, Suja Sukumar, and C. L. Polk for reading and adding invaluable comments to early versions of this book.
To Sandra Lombardo, for being my longtime favorite beta reader.
To Heather Van Fleet, for your endless enthusiasm for these characters, and for prompting the penis tiara epilogue. You were so right.
To Claire Zion, for all your excitement and hard work on this project.
To the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum, for keeping record of the firsthand accounts of Hurricane Katrina that informed much of the detail work in this book.
To my amazing writing community on Twitter and in Pitch Wars, who keep me from feeling alone in the crazy world of publishing.
To my husband, who always knows exactly the right thing to say. Maybe someday you’ll write a book on the proper care and feeding of Writer Wives!