The Scorpio Races

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could probably keep these acknowledgments pretty short by saying merely: I would like to thank everyone who enabled me to visit cliffs in the last year and a half.

But I suppose it would be lazy, and in any case, they deserve mention by name: my first publicist at Scholastic, Samantha Grefé, who moved my schedule around so that I could visit cliffs in California. My lovely foreign rights team, Rachel Horowitz, Janelle DeLuise, Maren Monitello, and Lisa Mattingly, who coordinated my overseas tours so that I had time to visit cliffs in Normandy. My Scholastic UK publicists, Alyx Price and Alex Richardson, who did their absolute best to make sure I got to cliffs in the south of England. And my very dear friends Erin and Richard Hill, who endured UK cliff hunting with me not once but twice, once facing south and once facing east.

I should thank those involved with the writing as well: my long-suffering editor, David Levithan, who didn’t panic when I told him my next book was about killer horses. My passionate agent, Laura Rennert, for paving the slightly crooked way for this book. Tessa Gratton and Brenna Yovanoff, my critique partners, for playing Spot the Travesty! Carrie Ryan, Natalie “Good Point” Parker, Jackson Pearce, and Kate Hummel for plot commentary and stories about jockeys’ locker rooms.

As always, I’m eternally grateful to my family for holding down the fort during deadlines – forts that have many movable parts, and deadlines that are often painted with holiday colors. I’m also grateful for my parents in particular, who protested, but only gently, when we rode our horses bareback.

And most of all, of course, I have to thank Ed, my husband, who always climbs cliffs with me.