The Fairest of Them All

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express my eternal love and gratitude to my editor, Heather Lazare, who really pushed me with this book, as she did with the last two, and to my agents, Elaine Markson and Gary Johnson, who were always ready to brainstorm and read a new draft and discuss plot twists over takeout in the office. It’s such a gift, to have people that smart and generous on your side, and I appreciate them more than I can say.

I also want to thank Jeanine Cummins, Mary McMyne, JoAnn Mapson, Jill Gleeson, Joi Brozek, and Morgan Grey, all brilliant authoresses and friends who gave me invaluable feedback throughout the writing of this book. I want to thank Jeanine, too, for dropping everything to read a draft at the last minute while I made monsters out of Play-Doh with her kids.

Thank you to Lance Cheuvront, who told me about hawks and falcons, and to Erika Merklin, who spent a long phone conversation telling me all about her Alaskan garden, and compost teas, and the wonders of bones and feathers and ash. And I want to thank my father, Alfred Turgeon, who let me barrage him over the course of an afternoon with questions about crops and blight. I’m also grateful to him, and to my mother, Jean, and my sister, Catherine, for being so patient and supportive through this and every project.

Finally, I want to thank Steven Berkowitz, who spent hours and hours listening to me talk about this book, and came up with more than a few of the twists and turns inside it. I love you.