Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(108)
Sometimes friends and acquaintances just show up in my pages. Usually it’s because I’m thinking of them but always because I need another name for a character. This time, Andrea Blatt, Barbara Hagerty, Joanne Langbein, Anthony Stith, and Darlene and Mark Tanenbaum slipped in and I hope y’all get a kick out of seeing your name in print. And Darlene and Mark, special thanks for keeping me hydrated and fed during the last days of writing this book.
Then there are those to thank for various reasons. Thank you, Harlan Greene for your excellent advice I took to heart and tried very hard to adhere to. Thanks to Martin and Toni McKerrow of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, for their amazing hospitality and also to my writer pal Elin Hilderbrand for her insanely wonderful blurb for this book. I owe you one! Thanks to Judy Linder, my great cousin, for helping find fun bee facts and connecting them to the chapters and huge thanks to my fabulous daughter, Victoria Frank Peluso, for so many things I can’t even remember them all—help with proofing, bee facts, social media, brainstorming, and for our first children’s book, a true collaborative effort, Teddy Spaghetti, which we hope will be published in the summer of 2020 by the children’s imprint of HarperCollins. And it should be obvious to Margaret Anastas, our children’s editor, that we love her to bits. Yes, we do. Victoria and I are super excited to work with you.
And heading over to the floors of William Morrow, let’s start with Carrie Feron, my fearless editor, the one I adore. Our fifteenth book together? Where does the time go? Your thoughts, ideas, and advice always bring me to a richer and more satisfying story for the enjoyment of so many others and I am deeply grateful for all of it. And I am also seriously grateful to Asanté Simons, assistant extraordinaire to my fearless editor, for the endless questions she answers and the many things she does to keep me above water. And let us not forget to blow a kiss to Michael Kelly! No reason. Just blowing kisses.
To the William Morrow team: Brian Murray, Liate Stehlik, Kelly Rudolph, Julie Paulauski, Kathryn Gordon, Kate Hudkins, Lisa Sharkey and the whole team at Studio 16, Frank Albanese, Virginia Stanley, Andrea Rosen, Josh Marwell, Andy LeCount, Carla Parker, Donna Waikus, Michael Morris, Rachel Levenberg, Gabe Barillas, Andrea Molitor, copyeditor Greg Villepique, Jennifer Hart, Rachel Levinger, Nyamekye Waliyaya, Suzanne Mitchell, and last but Lawsa not least, Brian Grogan: thank you one and all for all the miracles, and for your amazing support. And to our new secret weapon, Gretchen Koss of Tandem Literary. Girl? You killed it last year! Let’s do it again!
Speaking of powerhouses? Deep bows and many curtsies to genius, Suzanne Gluck, my agent at WME, and Andrea Blatt, of course! Many thanks to Michelle Feehan of New York and Matilda Forbes Watson, London. And thanks to Sylvie Rabineau and Hilary Zaitz Michael of WME Los Angeles. Y’all are the best!
Let us not forget Patti Morrison, my book tour buddy who keeps me out of trouble. Well, mostly. Anyway, many thanks for your excellent friendship and humor!
And then there are the extraordinary booksellers, and I mean every single one of you across this big wonderful country of ours, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, most especially Margot Sage-El and the Jedis of Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, New Jersey, Vicki Crafton and her wonderful booksellers at Litchfield Books in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, Jonathan Sanchez of Blue Bicycle Books in Charleston, Wendy Hudson from Mitchell’s Book Corner on Nantucket and all the wonderful people from the Nantucket Book Festival and Jacquie Lee, who, lucky for me, always finds a way to enhance book tour or my life in general. I love y’all and you know it’s true.
To my growing family! Carmine and Victoria and that precious angel from heaven, Teddy Peluso, whom we all adore—as y’all know, I love y’all so much! And Liam and Maddie Frank—I love y’all so much and miss you every day. And to Brian and Roberta Benton and Matthew and Danielle Benton and of course, little Luke, you all inspire me and fill my heart. And to my amazing husband, Peter. Mr. Frank? There are no words to describe my enormous love for you, but love you I do with all my heart, and all of you with all I’ve got.
Finally, to my readers, to whom I owe the greatest debt of all, I am sending you the most sincere and profound thanks for reading my stories, for sending along so many nice emails and posts and for coming to my book events. Y’all are the why of why I try and write a book each year. I hope Queen Bee will bring you lots of happiness and give you a thing or two to think about. There’s a lot of magic down here in the Lowcountry. Please come see us and get some for yourself. I love you all and thank you once again.