The Rising King (30 page)
Authors: Shea Berkley
Acknowledgements
I’ve had a crazy-wild, painful, exhilarating, exhausting, yet total blast writing the Keeper’s of Life trilogy. None of it would have happened without the large, obnoxious group of people who call themselves my friends. For these stories, I stole some of their names. I stole some of their occupations. I even stole a tiny bit of their personalities because some of them are really weird and they make me laugh. Like…a lot. But they all have my heart, and I have their backs. Always.
God bless them all. And I mean that.
It would be remiss of me not to thank my family. They put up with me talking about people who don’t exist as if they do, murders that never happen, monsters that live in my head and magic that is impossible. I am an undersized adult who has the privilege to play make-believe all day, and they support my delusions…most of the time unless they’re really hungry or the laundry is leaking into the family room.
A special thank you goes out to Robin Perini. I don’t know if I’ve said this before, so forgive me if I’m being repetitive, but my family is loud and can’t seem to function a whole day without me. I love them, but writing requires alone time that is a difficult concept for them to grasp. So…I wrote a huge bulk of this book at Robin’s house. Our writing weekends are awesome, and I’m very grateful that she had the grace, the compassion, and frankly the resilience, to invite me over for uninterrupted writing time. She is a saint and the smartest and most talented person I know. I’m not just being kind. It’s the truth.
Once again, I have to thank my UFC dudes who keep me from shriveling into a ball of jelly. Being a writer is a stagnant job, and more times than not, I force myself to get up and get moving when I’d rather just lie there daydreaming up stories. Shockingly, after five years, I haven’t run off the group of hard-working men who are overconfident in my physical abilities to lift, run and box. And for the record: I’M HITTING THE BAG AS HARD AS I CAN. (ahem…sorry) In short, they are the reason my body still functions. I love, yet hate them all. It’s a complicated relationship.
I’d like to thank my editors, Stacy Abrams and Kaleen Harding, for sharing their talents and pulling out the best in me and my stories. Also, I need to thank my publisher, Liz Pelletier, who has read every one of my books and made awesome suggestions and has supported me through this process. I couldn’t have done it without her.
Lastly, I need to thank my readers. Yep, you all are awesome. I’m honored you decided to join me on this adventure. Your support, reviews and word of mouth mean the world to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I wish I could hug you all. Seriously. I’m a hugger. So watch out.
About the Author
Shea Berkley has a fondness for characters, whether in real life or those she makes up in her head while she’s tending to the multitude of mundane tasks she’s forced to do in order to survive. Writing gives her purpose (truthfully, it keeps her out of trouble…mostly), and she can’t imagine herself doing anything else. (Maybe being a zombie for the television series The Walking Dead, but who doesn’t want to do that?) Since she leans toward the pubescent, she fits right in with the Young Adult book crowd. To find out more about her, go to
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