by Dani Harper
To my publisher, Montlake Romance; my wonderful editors, copy editors, and proofreaders; and my intrepid Author Team. You guys seriously rock! I could not ask for more positive people to work with.
To artist Jason Blackburn for another amazing cover. You captured the hero on the first try! And to narrator Justine Eyre for bringing my Grim Series to vibrant life as audiobooks—my readers adore your voice work and I do, too. To my agent, Stephany Evans of Ayesha Pande Literary. Your encouragement helped more than you know during an especially challenging year.
To Melody Guy for once again helping me sharpen my focus and tighten my prose. And to Sharon Stogner of Devil in the Details Editing for her fearless red-pen work on the very first draft. Thanks to both of you, my story isn’t walking around with spinach in its teeth!
To all of Dani’s Darklings for cheering me on through thick and thin. What began as a street team has become one lucky writer’s online support group, filled with truly amazing friends. And to Melissa Toews, Tina Clare, Sharon Stogner, Katie Dalton, and Honorary Darkling Jake S. Black, for permitting some of my characters to borrow your names.
To cosplayer Heidi Taylor (aka Triniti’s Ghost) for once again loaning me her irrepressible cats. Bouncer, Jade, and Rory first appeared in Storm Bound and insisted on returning! And to Gay Bamburg McDonald and Mike McDonald for sharing their handsome Neapolitan mastiff and Honorary Grim, Vincent de BluHouse. Calm, steady, and dignified, Vincent has been the perfect inspiration for the unique grim in this story.
To my mountain-man husband, Ron Silvester. For reading and rereading every page of every version of this book, usually in frustratingly unconnected bits and chunks. For courage under fire (otherwise known as living with an introverted, obsessive, and frequently discouraged writer). For giving me the time and space to write in peace but occasionally staging an intervention to get me out of the house (and also for not taking the kicking and screaming personally). I love you.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Let me say up front that I do not speak the Welsh language. My beloved grandmother did so fluently, but I didn’t think to ask her to teach me. (I was too young and too interested in other things. Like her faery stories!) So the Welsh words that I use, while carefully and lovingly researched, are not guaranteed to be accurate. And the fae languages in my books are only very loosely based on Welsh.
In response to reader requests for meanings and interpretations of some of the terms used in the Grim Series books, a glossary is being put together for my website. Watch for it at www.daniharper.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Legend, lore, love, and magic. These are the hallmarks of Dani Harper’s transformational tales of faeries, shapeshifters, ghosts, and more—for a mature audience.
A former newspaper editor, Dani’s passion for all things supernatural led her to a second career writing fiction. A longtime resident of the Canadian north and southeastern Alaska, she now lives in rural Washington with her retired mountain-man husband. Together they do battle with runaway garden gnomes, rampant fruit trees, and a roving herd of predatory chickens.
Dani Harper is the author of Storm Crossed, Storm Warned, Storm Bound, and Storm Warrior (the Grim Series), as well as First Bite (a Dark Wolf novel) for Montlake Romance. She is also the author of a yuletide ghost story, The Holiday Spirit, plus a popular shapeshifter series that includes Changeling Moon, Changeling Dream, and Changeling Dawn.
Visit her website at www.daniharper.com.
