I also want to thank novelist Stephen Kiernan: he didn’t read an early draft, but he was a great ear when we would bike and discuss the story.
Among the books I read that I still think about are Rachel Lloyd’s Girls Like Us; Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman; and Desert Nights by Edik Baghdasaryan and Ara Manoogian. I also want to express my admiration for novelist Vahan Zanoyan. His two novels about an Armenian girl who is abducted into the world of Russian and Middle Eastern sex slavery, A Place Far Away and The Doves of Ohanavank, are riveting.
I am grateful as well to my early readers: my lovely bride, Victoria Blewer; our astute young daughter, Grace Experience; my gifted editor, Jenny Jackson; and my splendid agent, Jane Gelfman.
Finally, I want to express my appreciation for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking. CAST is one of the many important organizations that work to assist people trafficked for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, and other instances of appalling human rights violations. Their website is www.castla.org. I also want to thank Girls Educational and Mentoring Services—founded by Rachel Lloyd of Girls Like Us—for their efforts on behalf of commercially and sexually exploited young women. Learn more about GEMS at www.gems-girls.org.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Bohjalian is the author of eighteen books, including such New York Times bestsellers as The Light in the Ruins, The Sandcastle Girls, The Double Bind, and Skeletons at the Feast. His novel Midwives was a number one New York Times bestseller and a selection of Oprah’s Book Club. His work has been translated into thirty languages, and three of his books have become movies (Secrets of Eden, Midwives, and Past the Bleachers). His novels have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, and Salon. He lives in Vermont. Visit him at www.chrisbohjalian.com or on Facebook or Twitter.