To Lindsey Kennedy and Allison Schuster, who work in publicity and marketing—thank you for all your efforts in getting my book out there. And to Scott Biel for his wonderful cover design. You’re amazing.
A special thank-you to all the people at Penguin Random House in Canada, although I really wish the newly merged company had chosen the name Random Penguin, simply because it’s such a wonderful image. To Brad Martin, Kristin Cochrane, Adria Iwasutiak, Val Gow, Constance McKenzie, Martha Leonard, Amy Black, Erin Kelly, and everyone else involved in the publishing of my books, thank you for your continuing support and hard work. You had a vision for making my novels a success and it worked, and for that I’m beyond grateful. I’m also grateful to Nita Pronovost. Even though she is no longer with PRH, I felt her hand guiding mine as I pruned and trimmed the manuscript, ridding the prose of unnecessary clutter and repetition. I wish her all the best in her new position.
Heartfelt thanks to Corinne Assayag at World Exposure, the company she founded while putting herself through law school, and which grew to be such a success that she never got around to practicing law. She recently redesigned my website (joyfielding.com) to make it a more interactive and state-of-the-art experience, and I think she succeeded brilliantly. Let me know if you agree.
Again, my thanks to my various publishers around the world and their wonderful translators. Please keep doing what you’ve been doing all these years. However my words are being refigured and expressed, it’s obviously working.
A special shout-out to Helga Mahmoud-Trainer in Germany, as well as an admonishment to stay well.
To my publishers who’ve only recently joined the fold, welcome aboard. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride.
Thank you to Annie, Courtney, Renee, and Aurora for all the love and help you give me on a daily basis. I love you, too. And to my beautiful grandchildren, to whom I’ve dedicated this book, I wish for you the happiness in your lives that you’ve given me in mine. You’re the best.
These acknowledgments would be incomplete without mentioning my very own long-deceased grandmother Mary, my father’s mother and as miserable a woman as ever walked this earth. She was the inspiration for Grandma Mary, and while this novel is unquestionably a work of fiction, many of the quotes attributed to her came straight from her mouth. There are times, as Caroline observes, when “you can’t make this stuff up.”