Sky on Fire

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my editor and publisher, Jean Feiwel, for her guidance and encouragement. Holly West, thank you for knowing this manuscript backward and forward and for all your wonderful ideas. I am so glad I have the two of you on my side. I must also thank Dave Barrett, the Executive Managing Editor, for his patience, and the fantastic copyeditor, Anne Heausler, for her work on this novel.

Thanks to my agent, Susanna Einstein, for her support and excellent advice. I also feel lucky to have Stephen Moore, Kim Stenton, and Sandy Hodgman on my team.

Rich Deas, you have a great vision for the art of this series.Thank you. And thanks to KB, April, and Katie, for designing the jackets and interior elements of the books. Karen Frangipane and Ksenia Winicki, thank you for helping to keep Monument 14 at play in the digital realm.

The series owes much of its success to the efforts of Angus Killick, Elizabeth Fithian, Alison Verost, Kate Lied, Kathryn Little, and the rest of the excellent Macmillan Children’s Group marketing and publicity departments. I have to say that touring with Allison, Kate, Elizabeth Mason, and Courtney Griffin was so outrageously fun, it’s hard to believe it was legal. Was it all legal? I’m not entirely sure. That stuff in Pensacola was pretty dodgy.

I’d like to thank composer Paul Libman for writing music for the songs ‘Get Up’ and ‘Leave Me Be,’ both of which you can hear at emmylaybourne.com. Thanks to Ava Anderson for rocking the vocals and to Uri Djemal at MadPan studios for recording and engineering these songs so beautifully.

Mother/son critical feedback team Kristin and Andrew Bair worked their magic on Sky on Fire. Thank you both. I owe Elizabeth Harriman big-time for her help with the scene where Batiste and his mother are reunited. And thanks to Rita Arens and Scott Taylor for being excellent beta readers.

To Jen Pattap and Jeanette and Anthony LoPinto of the Threefold café – you guys have fed me, heart and soul, since I started on this series. Thank you.

My gratitude to my parents goes so far beyond what I could ever fit on this page. The same thing goes for how I feel about my husband, Greg, and our two children, Elinor and Rex. A writer should be able to express these things, but I find myself overcome when I think about how fortunate I am to have you fine people to love.