To Carolyn Forde, my savvy, all-round kick-ass agent—thank you for your support and for being in my corner. I wonder what our next adventure might be. To Emily Ohanjanians, my incredible editor, whose insight and knack for making manuscripts shine is astonishing—I couldn’t be more grateful to you, or proud of what we’ve accomplished thus far.

To the wonderful Harlequin, HarperCollins and MIRA teams, including Cory Beatty, Peter Borcsok, Nicole Brebner, Audrey Bresar, Randy Chan, Jennifer Choi, Heather Connor, Lia Ferrone, Emer Flounders, Heather Foy, Olivia Gissing, Miranda Indrigo, Amy Jones, Roxanne Jones, Sean Kapitain, Linette Kim, Karen Ma, Ashley MacDonald, Leo MacDonald, Margaret Marbury, Lucille Miranda, Leah Mol, Lauren Morocco, Lindsey Reeder, Loriana Sacilotto, Elita Sidiropoulou, Alice Tibbetts, Kaitlyn Vincent and colleagues: you are incredible. Thank you for everything you do.

Huge thanks to HarperAudio, BeeAudio and the brilliant performers who bring my words to life with such grace and enthusiasm, making them their own. Special thanks to Lauren Ezzo and Alex Wyndham, my go-to narrating gurus who blow my mind each time I listen to their work, and to Melissa Moran for completing the brilliant trio. To Brad and Britney at AudioShelf—you know how you crack me up. Keep on doing your fab videos!

The generosity of those who take time out of their busy lives to answer my (weird and wicked) questions always astounds me, and I’m surprised none of you have turned me in to the cops yet. Special thanks to cool A.F. Brady and Sharon Guger for their medical expertise (and to A.F. for reading the first dodgy version of this book), Mary Randall for her library insights and local knowledge of Maine, and fellow author Bruce Robert Coffin for helping me get away with fictional murder...again.

I’m so fortunate to be surrounded by such a fantastic bunch of supportive GTA gal-pal authors, including Sam Bailey (thanks for your plot input!), Karma Brown, Amy Dixon, Molly Fader, Jennifer Hillier, Natalie Jenner, Lydia Laceby, Jennifer Robson, Marissa Stapley and K.A. Tucker. Love, hugs and thank-yous all round. Huge hugs to Sonica, too—thank you for everything, dear friend.

Farther afield, the immensely talented Mary Kubica and Kimberly Belle were the first to accept to blurb a book for me, an unknown British/Swiss/Canadian combo. Not only that, but they also introduced me to so many other writers, it’s become near impossible to name you all without doubling the length of this book. Please know I appreciate every single one of you. Your friendship, help, knowledge, ongoing encouragement, sweet messages of support and strict kicks up the backside whenever I’m throwing a wobbly...you really are the best, and you make the writing community better than I could have ever imagined.