Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,161
had kindly provided, and at last into the deepest, warmest sleep she had ever slept. Home safe in the Deucalion, surrounded by her family.
Acknowledgements
My first and most important thank you goes to you, splendid reader, for coming this far on Morrigan’s adventures with me. You’ve been patient, enthusiastic and endlessly supportive, and I hope Hollowpox was worth the wait.
Speaking of patient, enthusiastic and endlessly supportive … Ruth Alltimes, what a queen. It is truly the greatest stroke of fortune to have you as my editor, and I’m so thankful for your sharp eye and good heart.
I am incredibly lucky and forever grateful to work with the dream team of Alvina Ling, Suzanne O’Sullivan, Rachel Wade, Samantha Swinnerton and Ruqayyah Daud. Thank you for the expertise, talent, creativity and resourcefulness you bring to publishing this series.
Across Hachette Children’s Group, Hachette Australia, Hachette New Zealand, and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, every member of Team Nevermoor brings so much passion, skill and hard work to the table, and I can’t thank you all enough: Dom Kingston, Nicola Goode, Fiona Evans, Katy Cattell, Tania Mackenzie-Cooke, Katharine McAnarney, Louise Sherwin-Stark, Hilary Murray Hill, Megan Tingley, Mel Winder, Fiona Hazard, Jeanmarie Morosin, Helen Hughes, Tash Whearity, Dido O’Reilly, Katherine Fox, Jemimah James, Andrew Cohen, Chris Sims, Daniel Pilkington, Isabel Staas, Kate Flood, Sarah Holmes, Sean Cotcher, Sophie Mayfield, Caz Feeney, Jenny Topham, Cassy Nacard, Suzy Maddox-Kane, Alison Shucksmith, Sacha Beguely, Emilie Polster, Bill Grace, Savannah Kennelly, Victoria Stapleton, Michelle Campbell, Jen Graham, and Virginia Lawther.
Thank you to the very talented Jim Madsen and Hannah Peck for the amazing artwork, and to Alison Padley, Sasha Illingworth, Christa Moffitt and Angelie Yap for the brilliant cover designs. You have made Hollowpox so beautiful.
Big thanks as always to Jenny Bent, Molly Ker Hawn, Amelia Hodgson, Victoria Cappello and the entire, most excellent Bent Agency, and to the dreamy authors who make up Team Cooper. Publishing can be a strange, confusing world; it is indescribably nice to be on a little life raft full of people who support and cheer each other on. You are all doing such extraordinary things and you inspire me constantly.
Thank you to Catherine Doyle for the gift that is De Flimsé. (Told you it was going in book three.) I can’t quite recall the origin story any more … a freezing train station after Cheltenham Lit Fest? A weird mishearing? I DON’T KNOW but it definitely made me laugh.
Thank you to Gemma Whelan, the voice (the many, many voices) of the Nevermoor audiobooks. I can’t tell you how much joy it gives me to hear you bring this world and these characters to life in such funny, moving and surprising ways. It’s honestly quite rude of you to be so talented, but please do carry on.
Thank you to the publishers and translators putting my books into children’s hands all over the world in forty languages. I’ve been lucky to spend time with some of you already, and your care, skill and attention to detail leaves me speechless. Thank you so much.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to the booksellers, librarians, teachers, bloggers, bookstagrammers and booktubers who have shown such love for Nevermoor and Wundersmith, and passed on that enthusiasm to others. Your championing of children’s books makes the world a warmer, nicer, more magical place.
To my family and friends, thank you for the bottomless barrel of love and support. Shout-out to Sherri Gordon-Harris, who occupies both categories and on whose various couches, kitchen tables and spare beds so much of this series has been written over the years, and also to The Chloe Musgrove for answering my (excessively specific) theatre questions.
My agent and my friend, Gemma Cooper – you are a lioness, a deep well of common sense and good cheer, the greatest advocate and the coolest accomplice I could have asked for. FIVE BRILLIANT YEARS we’ve been on this caper together, and I can’t imagine doing any of it without you. Thank you for always having my back.
And finally, cheers to me old pal Sal (the genius behind ‘What’s That Smell?’, which made us both wheeze with laughter in a deeply undignified fashion, but what’s new) and to my splendid Ma, a nine-star human, the Deucalion of mothers.
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