Lately my life has been a Columbo episode. Just one d### thing after the other.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back the water, just when you thought that pesky morphing alien was dead, just when you were sure that the vampire had a stake through its heart, just when you thought Gojira had sunk to the bottom of the ocean…something gruesome lifts its slimy head and…the to-do list gets longer. Again.

I am talking about getting a book out the door, and the pesky tasks that happen in its wake. I think I’ve swept all the broken glass from the floor, but be careful where you step.

I need to say a big sparkly heroic THANK YOU to all the folks who’ve helped me on the way. Here’s the list:

• For services above and beyond the call of duty, my beta reader extraordinaire, Bryan-Kirk Reinhardt. Not only did he read more than one draft, he cheerfully said he’d do it again.
• Laura Blackwell, the copy-editor on The Third Kind of Magic, who didn’t work on this last book but whose suggestions I absolutely took to heart for the second. (All extra commas and British spellings are my own.)
• Julie Dillon, the cover illustrator, who brought older Suli and her gang of friends to life and accepted my passion for purple without a murmur.
• Mary Auxier, the copy-editor who turned around the copy edit on The Cursed Amulet well before the promised date, and pointed out where logic was missing or stuff just didn’t work. Painful, but much appreciated.
• Robin J. Samuels, who did the final proofread and made my revisions so much better.
• David Blatner, who doesn’t know me from Adam, but whose lynda.com tutorial on book covers in InDesign has saved my life a couple of times. Thank you for making life-saving videos free, David!
• I have to thank my Russian publisher, EKSMO, because if they hadn’t insisted I provide them with a sequel,”and when can we have it?”, I probably wouldn’t have prioritized the half-finished ms.
• The crows in the local park who have advised me on questions of Crow protocol and laws.
• And last but never least, all the fans and reviewers of the first book who posted reviews and emailed me to tell me they liked the first book and why. Words can’t express how much it meant to me to receive that encouragement.

Thank you all. Deep bow.