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Acknowledgments

When I was taking classes for the MFA I didn’t finish, I took a non-fiction creative writing workshop. For one assignment, I drove up to Idaho City, which was about an hour away from my house. The town was Idaho’s first capital during the gold rush and has a lot of history on every street. I wandered through the town, then found the cemetery. One grave caught my eye. A loving tribute to the woman I called the other Mary. Researching her short life gave me a picture of the world back then and her family. Her husband remarried (another woman named Mary) and became the mayor of Boise many years later. But his early days were with this Mary. The forgotten one.

Writing this story set in the old Idaho Penitentiary, gave me the same feeling of stepping back in time as writing The Other Mary. Listening to the voices of the past gives us hope for the future.

As always big thanks to my publisher and all the people who make these books come alive. Esi Sogah, you’re amazing. And thanks to Jill Marsal for helping me with my writing/deadline schedule. She is actually more of a planner than I am—I didn’t think that was possible.