ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Setting out to write a novel is a funny thing.

If you knew how hard it would be when you started, you would likely skip the whole thing and do something moreproductive with your time.

Like ... literally anything.

But something wouldn't let you go; otherwise, you wouldn't do it. Something gnawed away at you at midnight andthen again at 5 am.

These characters needed my help. They needed their voices heard. They needed me to get to the finish line so they could breathe the sweet sigh of relief that comes when something difficult is finished.

And you get to breathe it with them.

So you grind it out … through the suck days and the great ones.

The days when you feel like Patterson and King, and the days when you realize you are neither of them.

Every chapter completed feels like a section of trail on a steep mountain, each one moving you closer to the summit.

Then, after the long, arduous battle up, complete with steep rocky trails, mountain lions, early mornings, and latenights, you reach the summit!

You type, THE END! In caps.

So you know you did it.

Then you realize that what you wrote the first time barely qualified as English in some places, and you more or less needed to start the entire process again from scratch.

Not one more time. Like ten.

Then you do a copy edit and realize how bad your grammar was the entire time.

But then, one day, it's finally done ... really done, and you get a moment to reflect with gratitude on the things thatmade it possible.

You get a moment to breathe and be thankful for people like your editor, Claire Barnhart, who catches all your mistakes, points out your flawed logic and gives you incredible feedback.

You get time to appreciate your wife, Jennifer, who listened to you complain incessantly and told you the truth when you didn't want to hear it. Sometimes, when you didn't ask or need it to, but such is the right bestowed on a spouse when they sign on to tolerate you and your eccentricities for life. It was like deciding at 41 that it was your childhooddream to write books and then actually going to do it with their unwavering support.

It's gratitude for my Godmothers Paulette and Denise, who were my test readers and gracious ones at that.

It's gratitude for friends you know will tell you the truth, like Big Tuna, because they've never done anything but.

And its gratitude for my mother, who started the whole damn thing by taking me to the bookstore so often I could havefounded a wing of a children's library with the books of my youth. It's gratitude for her always telling you that youwere good even if you sucked and for being your biggest cheerleader … always.

This book is the product of all those people, and maybe none more important than my kids, Owen and Sophia, to whom the completion of my first novel is dedicated.

To the ends of the Earth, I hope you both follow your passions and the music that stirs in your heart.

Whatever makes it sing, whatever makes you wake up in the dark to do it … that's the thing.

Don't ask for it to be something else. Don't pretend you can't hear it.

Thank it for being there, and swear your allegiance to it, grateful every day that you get to do it.

EO

DEDICATION

To Owen and Sophia … follow crazy dreams.