Acknowledgments
A special thank-you to the Village of Sewickley and its many charming businesses, especially the Crazy Mocha Coffee Company and the Penguin Bookshop. And thank you to my dear friends Heather Terrell, Mark Garvey, and Kathryn Jackson, residents who’ve shared their love and knowledge of Sewickley with me.
Local readers will notice that I’ve created names and places that don’t exist in the region, and amalgams of places that do, including Sewickley Elementary School, which is a composite of the two public elementary schools in the area. I hope readers will still recognize the Village, the Heights, and the ’Burgh in these pages.
To try to convey the complexity of abusive relationships, I relied on many sources, including the National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health (womenshealth.gov), which offer excellent resources for identifying and ending the cycle of abuse.
Many thanks to my lovely and talented agent, Rachel Ekstrom, and all the wonderful people at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. And thank you to my two great editors, Melanie Fried and Holly Ingraham, and to the fantastic team at St. Martin’s Press; I’m honored to be one of your authors.
This is a story about female friendship, and I’m privileged to be friends with many incredible women. Thank you to all of my many writing pals, including Meredith Mileti, Lila Shaara, Nancy Martin, Nicole Peeler, Kathryn Miller Haines, Heather Terrell, Kathleen George, Annette Dashofy, Gwyn Cready, Meryl Neiman, and Shelly Culbertson.
And thank you to my walking and book club pals, including Lisa Lundy, Mary Lou Linton-Morningstar, Sharon Wolpert, Marilyn Fitzgerald, Becky Mator, Ann Paulini, Eun-Joung Lee, Shabnam Mirchandani, and Susan Moore.
A special thank-you to Donna Wallace and Lisa Bartunek for being early readers and champions of this book.
And finally, heartfelt thanks to my lovely and talented daughter, Maggie, for being such a great sounding board and editor for this book. Thank you also and always to my two Joes, for your amazing love and support. I’m so lucky to have you all.