Today, as the last volume of The Riverman Trilogy is published, I'd like to share the acknowledgements from The Storyteller.
This novel is dedicated to Michael Bourret and Joy Peskin for obvious reasons. At least the reasons are obvious to me. They have supported the story—the trilogy!—from the very beginning. Back in 2012, when I approached Michael with fifty strange pages, he believed that I could deliver another thousand or so even stranger ones. Or at least he pretended to believe. That’s all I needed to keep writing. And I will always thank him for that.
Joy edited those thousand or so pages, helping me ditch a few hundred along the way. Good riddance to those ditched pages. The story didn’t need them, but the story definitely needed Joy’s guidance, her wisdom, and her encouragement. She was tireless in finding holes in the plot, in the characters, in the world. Then she patched those holes up and made it look like they were never even there.
There were others who have been with this trilogy since the beginning. Beth Clark designed the books and they are lovely things indeed. Yelena Bryksenkova illustrated the covers and I couldn’t have asked for more beautiful representations of Alistair, Fiona, Charlie, Keri and their furry friends. Angie Chen saved the day many times throughout the process, keeping the books on schedule and looking their best. Kate Hurley and Karla Reganold copyedited and proofread all three volumes and humored my grammatical eccentricities. Mary Van Akin sang the trilogy’s praises and people listened because she can really sing. The rest of the gang at Macmillan and the folks at Recorded Books, including Claudia Howard and Graham Halstead, have helped share my tales far and wide. Lauren Abramo and the other agents at Dystel & Goderich have been kind and supportive since the day I decided to join Michael’s roster of authors.
My family has been there all along too, of course. Mom, Dad, Tim, Toril, Dave, Jake, Will, Jim, Gwenn, Pete, and all the other members of the Starmer, Van Scotter, Amundsen, Finney, Glitman, Evans and Wells clans (as well as their respective dogs): I love you. Cate and Hannah: I love you the most (sorry, everyone else) and, really, all my books are basically dedicated to you, because you dedicate so much to me.
Finally, a storyteller doesn’t exist without someone who’s willing to listen. You, the reader, have been willing to listen and have stuck around to the end. That’s quite incredible of you, and I am forever in your debt. Thank you, thank you, thank you…