Thank you to my family and friends who are so supportive of my writing. I know it can't be easy to listen to me talking on and on about characters who feel like real people to me!

Barbara Scott, my wonderful editor, deserves a BIG thank you for her enthusiasm for the series and for her intuitive comments to improve it. Thank you so much, Barbara.

I can always count on Judy Rehm, friend and Bible scholar, for her support and for helping me to express a biblical truth better.

I so appreciate Linda Byler who takes time away from her own writing to read my manuscripts and help me make my stories authentic. Linda, I wish you the best of luck as your books enter the market. I know you will enjoy great success!

Each day when I sit down to write I think about the people who encouraged me when the dream God planted in me started to bloom . . . the high school English teacher who moved up to a higher grade each year as I did so that we had four wonderful years together. At the time I wondered what that was about, God. Now I know that it was for the day Mrs. White would read something I wrote and encourage me to write a short story for extra credit. Then there was Charlie LaPoint, the very cranky but gifted newspaper editor who alternately terrified me (I was just out of high school!) and pushed me to be a better writer, insisting to the managing editor that I should be promoted to intern reporter and when I messed up, stuck up for me. And finally, Vivian Stephens, the editor who bought my first novel and set me on this path.

As always, God, the master author of the book of my life, gets the biggest thanks. And the glory. Thank You!