Sentinel

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are never easy to write. There’s always this stress when it comes to writing them, because you fear you’ll forget someone. But the acknowledgements for this book are pretty damn important to me. It’s the end for Alex and there has been so many people who’ve been with her from day one, all the way back in late 2007 and early 2008, and helped shape her into the Alex we’ve all come to love… or hate.

The Covenant Series has had a lot of beta readers during its time that lent their insightful advice and knowledge. Chu-Won Martin was literally the first person to ever read Half-Blood. She holds the first reader’s card and because she didn’t laugh in my face after reading it, we’re here where we are today. A big thank you to Lesa Rodrigues for always being eager to delve back into the Covenant world and reading early manuscripts that were nothing more than chicken scratch. Thank you to Carissa Thomas, Julie Fedderson, and Cindy Thomas for reading these books before they ever reached the hands of a reader. Thank you to the peeps over at Query Tracker for helping shape up the query letter that landed the contract back in 2010. A big thanks to Molly McAdams, who has probably read the last couple of books in the Covenant Series months and months ahead of release and always makes me feel good about the story. A huge thank you to Stacey Morgan for critiquing Sentinel and many other books one chapter at a time and suffering through all the changes I end up going back and making and not telling her about.

Of course, a big thank you to Kate Kaynak for taking a chance on Half-Blood and to the team at Spencer Hill Press for whipping it into shape, to Kevan Lyon for always being the über-amazing agent that she is, to Rebecca Mancini for introducing the Covenant Series into the foreign markets, and to Brandy Rivers for well, being awesome in general.

Now here comes the hard part, because there will inevitably be people I forget to mention, but I do want to name all those that I can remember off the top of my head. These are the readers and the bloggers who’ve done AMAZING things for the Covenant Series and were there since the very beginning. Thank you to Vee (and yes, I’m going to spell your name the way I say it. Or Vi. Or Vivian.), Valerie from Stuck in Books, Momo from Books Over Boys, the entire crews over at Books Complete Me, Mundie Moms, Good Choice Reading, all the sisters at YA Sisterhood, Kayleigh from K-Books, all the peeps who take part in the Covenant Read Along, the Greer family—especially Papa Greer—Reading Angel, Amanda from Canada, and oh goodness, my brain has not run out of names because Ghost Adventures is on the TV and I’m drawn in by the douche-tastic-ness of it all.

Of course, none of this would be possible without my family and friends, who put up with the fact I spend more time writing than speaking to any of them in real life.

And finally, to all the readers, I can never thank you enough. I’m so honored to have taken this journey with you. This may be it for Alex, but you know… stories never really, truly end.