Midnight Thief (29 page)

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Every debut novel has a story behind it, and
Midnight Thief
is no exception. I have many, many people to thank.

Thank you to my parents, Andy and Judy King, for instilling in me a love of stories and language.

Kyra is actually a character from a story I started in high school, and there were three English teachers in particular who had a large influence on my creative writing endeavors: Kate Davis, John Gray, and Stuart Lipkowitz.

Thank you to my husband, Jeff Blackburne, for putting up with endless chatter about demon cats and for hugs through writerly mood swings.

The story would probably never have been completed without my dear friends at Courtyard Critiques, who patiently pointed out all the good and bad as I churned out those awkward early drafts: Amitha Knight, Coral Frazer, Peta Andersen, and Rachal Aronson, who were there from the beginning; and Lara Ehrlich, Jennifer Barnes, and Emily Terry, who offered astute comments on later pages.

A slew of generous beta readers helped me with the completed manuscript: Harold Hsiung, Karen Zee, Karen Ng, Kenli Okada, Bart Cleveland, Stephanie Del Tufo, Todd Thompson, Lisa Choi, Lianne Crawford, April Choi, Joseph Selby, Irene Kim, Amy Shi, Haley Alexander, Rebecca Stoll, Cami Lau, Eric Jacobson, Rachel Winter, Greg Newby, Emily Lo, and Anisha Keshavan.

Love to the ladies of the Fourteenery for laughs and hugs during the rollercoaster debut process.

A huge thank-you to my agent, Jim McCarthy, for believing in Kyra and for his constant support as
Midnight Thief
made its journey into the world.

And of course, thank you to my editors, Abby Ranger and Rotem Moscovich, who took my sapling manuscript and coaxed it into a full-fledged tree. Thank you as well to Laura Schreiber, Julie Moody, and the rest of the Hyperion team. It really is a dream come true.

LIVIA BLACKBURNE
has a PhD in neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she conducted research on the neural correlates of reading. She still blogs on the intersection of writing and brain science
(liviablackburne.com)
, and she now lives in Los Angeles with her husband. This is her debut novel.