Acknowledgements
This book came to life in 2020, the year we spent inside. I wrote it sitting in my London flat with the balcony door cracked open to let in some air, typing in bursts between piss-yourself-funny conversations with new friends and evenings spent watching strings of satellites pass overhead like they were shooting stars (they were actually the experiments of villainous tech billionaires, but if you squinted: celestial bodies!). It’s kind of a weird book. I had so much fun writing it. I’m endlessly, almost frighteningly grateful to the people who gave it a chance.
Thank you to Chloe Seager, my agent, who kicks arse for a living and looks good doing it; to Sylvan Creekmore, who made grabby hands first, and Vicki Lame, who took us to the finish line at Wednesday Books; and to Hannah Sandford, for giving Gwen and Art their wonderful UK home.
Thank you also to Fliss Stevens, Katie Ager, Jadene Squires, Nick de Somogyi, Anna Swan, Nina Douglas, Beatrice Cross, Mattea Barnes, Alesha Bonser, Laura Bird and Michael Young on this side of the ocean and Vanessa Aguirre, Rivka Holler, Brant Janeway, Soleil Paz, Michelle McMillian, Meghan Harrington, Eric Meyer, Adriana Coada, Melanie Sanders, Kim Ludlam, Tom Thompson, Dylan Helstien, Britt Saghi, Emma Paige West, Michelle Altman and Amber Cortes on the other.
I am so grateful to Olga Grlic, Natalie Shaw and Thy Bui for my beautiful covers, and to Alice Oseman, Rainbow Rowell, Becky Albertalli, C.S. Pacat, Freya Marske, Ava Reid, Arvin Ahmadi and Lauren Nicolle Taylor for early reads and kind words.
Thank you to Nick and Hannah, who have to live with me, and my parents, who also had to live with me at one point but have since escaped. Thank you to Photine, Gwen and Art’s first and biggest fan. Thank you to friends and readers Rosianna, El, Maggie, Dervla, Alice and Ava. Thank you to my fandom comrades, who got me through the worst of that year. A bouquet of rats for my writing group. A little kiss on the nose for my cat, and for anybody else who fancies one, especially if I forgot to thank you with words.