The Uninvited (25 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

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Acknowledgments

T
hank you to my amazing Fairy Godmother of an editor, Lucia Macro, for getting this whole thing started. If she hadn’t called up my agent and asked if I, a young-adult novelist, would be interested in writing a novel for adults set in 1918 (a dream call for any author!), this book would not be here today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Lucia. Thank you also to Nicole Fischer and the rest of the HarperCollins team who helped bring this novel to life.

Thank you to my indefatigable agent, Barbara Poelle, who stuck by me for four long years before I even started selling books to publishers. Barbara always champions my work with such passion and care, and I’m so thankful to have her guiding my path in this surreal and wonderful world of publishing.

Thanks to my husband, Adam, and our two kids, for putting up with all the times I’ve run upstairs to our home office or out to coffeehouses so I could disappear into my fictional worlds with my laptop. Their love and support mean the world to me. Thank you also to Adam for naming Buchanan, Illinois.

Thanks to my sister, Carrie Raleigh, for always being one of my first readers, ever since my childhood attempts at writing novels. Her help with this particular manuscript greatly boosted my confidence in the book’s ability to work the way I wanted it to work, and I’m utterly grateful.

Thank you to my parents, Richard and Jennifer Proeschel, for sharing their love of history with me via classic movies, TV series, books, music, and trips to historical sites throughout my childhood. I suppose I should also thank my mom for being born in Illinois and for taking me to visit relatives and small towns in the “Land of Lincoln” years ago. Those visits most certainly helped me create my fictional town in this book and educated me in the way sweet corn “tastes like candy.”

I’m extremely appreciative of historical societies, universities, and government agencies that have meticulously scanned documents from the past, including newspaper clippings about the Spanish influenza, letters and diaries from World War I, 1918 Alien Registration cards, photographs, and sheet music covers. Of particular help were the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the University of Michigan’s online
Influenza Encyclopedia
(influenzaarchive.org), and the Library of Congress. Thank you also to archive.org and collectors of vintage music who have made recordings of songs from the 1910s available for all to hear in this modern age.

Thank you to my team of supportive writer friends: Kim Murphy, Francesca Miller, Ara Burklund, Teri Brown, Miriam Forster, Kelly Garrett, Heidi Schulz, Amber J. Keyser, Lauren DeStefano, and members of SCBWI Oregon, The Lucky 13s, and Corsets, Cutlasses, & Candlesticks. My fellow writers never cease to cheer me on in all of my writing endeavors, and I’m grateful for their presence in my life, both in person and online.

Last but not least, I must give a special nod to Iggy, my dog of sixteen-and-a-half years. He passed away on the same day that I turned in the first draft of this book, but he was by my side while I worked until the end. Here’s to Iggy and his patience, and to our puppy, Wilbur, my newest writing companion.