Blue Bloods

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heartfelt thanks to the book's fairy godmothers—Brenda Bowen, Helen Perelman, and Elizabeth Rudnick, who gave me a ship and let me fly. Thank you to Colin Hosten, Elizabeth Clark, and everyone at Hyperion for believing in this book. Thanks to Richard Abate, Kate Lee, Josie Freedman, and James Gregorio and Karen Kenyon at ICM for their fantastic support.

Hugs and kisses to the amazing DLCs and Johnstons: Mom—thank you for being at every reading and for always being there for me; Aina, Steve, Nico, and Chito—we are family, and we can boogie, too (especially Nicholas!); Dad J and Mom J—thank you for all your support and for buying all those books; John, Anji, Alex, Tim, Rob, Jenn, Val, and the one on the way we are family and we can mosh pit, too! Thanks to all the extended family, especially the Torres, the Gaisanos, the Ongs, the Izumis, and the de la Cruzes.

Many thanks to the LA and NY support groups: Tristan Ashby, Jennie Kim, Kim DeMarco, Gabriel Sandoval, Tom Dolby, Tyler Rollins, Jason Lundy, Andy Goffe, Jeff Levin, Peter Edmonston, Mark Hidgen, Caroline Suh, Doug Meehan, Thad Sheely, Gabby Sheely, Mindy Wilson, Ji Gilbreth, Catherine Hong, Yumi Kobayashi, Peter Sluszka, Ruth Basloe, Andrey Slivka, Alice Carmona, Michael Casey, Karen Robinovitz, Kate Roche, John Fox, Carol Fox, Karlo Pastrovic, Gabriel de Guzman, Edgar Papazian, Michelle Lenzi, Matt Paco, Fitz Mangubat, Taylor Hsiao, Arisa Chen, Katie Davis, Tina Hay, Diva Gittel, Liz Craft, Adam Fierro, Anna David, MaryClare Williams, Alexandra Jacobs, Nicole Cannon, Ian Kornbluth, Brent Bryan, Nora Gordon, Matthias Kohlemainen, Juliet Gray, Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg, Sara Shandler, Emily Thomas, Jennifer Zatorski, Abby McAden, Allison Dickens, Jared Paul Stern, Lisa Marsh, Andrew Stone, Ben Widdicombe, Norah Lawlor, and Katie Murphy.

Thanks also to our little Peapod, who we will miss forever.

This book is dedicated to my dad, Bert de la Cruz, true blue in every sense of the word, who has heroes' blood in his veins.

This book would not exist without the love, support, insight, and intelligence of my husband, Mike Johnston, to whom I owe everything.