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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel captured my heart and my imagination as quick and bright as lightening. I owe its fiery force not only to the fascinating and courageous life of Joy Davidman, but also to so many others who contributed to the understanding of her life. I asked, I prodded, I read, I researched, and I could not have written this alone.
From the day I said it out loud, “I want to write a novel that tells the story of Joy Davidman beyond Shadowlands,” there were friends and family who supported the idea with such enthusiasm that they propelled me forward. I am astoundingly grateful for this tribe of writers who knew about it from the from the start and offered an ear, advice, and all-out love: Ariel Lawhon, Lisa Patton, Lanier Isom, Kerry Madden Lundsford, Paula McLain, Mary Alice Monroe, Joshilyn Jackson, J. T. Ellison, Laura Lane McNeal, Karen Spears Zacharias, Dot Frank, Kathy Trocheck, Kathie Bennett, Tinker Lindsey, Lisa Wingate, Jenny Carroll, and Mary Beth Whalen—you buoyed me when I wavered and kept my confidence. Blake Leyers, with her first read, asked me the questions I didn’t even know I needed to answer, and I am grateful beyond measure. To Signe Pike—how do I thank you? This editor （and author） extraordinaire read it from beginning to end and together we took it apart, found its troubles and its triumphs.
Lyle Dorsett （author of Joy’s first biography, And God Came In, an Anglican priest and professor at Samford University Divinity School） is a prince among men. He spent hours with me talking about Joy and her life, her possible motivations and her triumphs and despairs. His prayers and his prodding to “write a story about her life” meant more to me than he will ever know. Also professor at Montreat College and author of numerous works about Joy Davidman, Don King’s work was invaluable as I sent him emails and questions and read everything he wrote about Joy and her writing and poetry.
I would not have finished this novel, at least not in the form it is in, without my sacred time at Rivendell Writer’s Colony under the ministrations of Carmen Touissant. It was there that I often found the heart of the story when I felt it was missing. My love and gratitude are in equal measure.
To the authors who have written about both Joy and Jack before me, whose work introduced me to several facets of them both, I am indebted and grateful （listed in the Author’s Note for suggested further reading）。
The Wade Center at Wheaton College and most notably Elaine Hooker were invaluable. As I sat in the reading room with Joy’s papers, passport, divorce decree, poetry, and letters, she came alive for me in a way I hadn’t expected. The Wade Center’s support and careful curating of her papers （and C. S. Lewis’s） allowed me to discover Joy in a deeper way. Elaine answered unending questions and guided me to the papers I needed the most. All authors should have someone like her in a place like this.
To my agent, Marly Rusoff, who believed in this story from the very beginning and championed it to its very end. My gratitude is as endless as my emails.
To the extraordinary team at HarperCollins/Thomas Nelson—you are a gift and a pleasure and I am grateful for every single one of you. To Amanda Bostic who understood not only the story but also why I wanted to tell it from the get-go. Working with you has been one of the greatest pleasures of my publishing history.