Born to Darkness (75 page)

So thank you, real Navy SEALs—and not
just
for providing well over a decade of inspiration.

A big thank-you, too, to the team at Ballantine and Random House including my stellar editor Shauna Summers; my agent, Steve Axelrod; my eternally patient family: Ed, Jason, Melanie, Aidan, Dexter and Little Joe; and my parents, Fred and Lee Brockmann.

My first-draft readers should be given medals and a ceremony with a trumpet fanfare, just like at the end of
Star Wars
. Thank you, Deede Bergeron, Patricia McMahon, Lee Brockmann, Ed Gaffney, Deirdre Van Collie, and especially Scott Lutz. (Insert Wookie sound of approval here.)

Thank you to Bill and Jodie Kuhlman for letting me borrow the name “Old Main” for the primary building on the OI campus.

Thanks to the entire cast and crew of
The Perfect Wedding
, the indie feature romantic comedy that I co-wrote, produced, and helped film last summer. Find out more about what I’m doing when I’m not writing novels, at
www.ThePerfectWeddingMovie.com
.

And as long as you’re surfing the Internet, come and see what the main characters in
Born to Darkness
look like inside the murky depths of my head! Meet Shane and Mac and all the others through posts, photos, and video snippets over at my website:
www.SuzanneBrockmann.com
. Interact with them and with me (and with other readers) on my Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/SuzanneBrockmannBooks
.

Huge thanks to Shirin Tinati, photographer extraordinaire, for helping me bring these characters to life; and to my entire gorgeous cast of actors: Aubrey Grant (Shane), Briana Pozner (Mac), Eric Aragon (Bach), Apolonia Davalos (Anna), David Singletary (Diaz), and Jason T. Gaffney (Elliot).

Last but certainly not least, I want to thank
you
, my readers, who trust me enough to follow wherever I will take you, and who continue to give me permission to write the stories of my heart.

As always, any mistakes I’ve made or liberties I’ve taken are completely my own.

Since her explosion onto the publishing scene more than ten years ago, S
UZANNE
B
ROCKMANN
has written fifty books, and is now widely recognized as one of the leading voices in romantic suspense. Her work has earned her repeated appearances on the
USA Today
and
New York Times
bestseller lists, as well as numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America’s #1 Favorite Book of the Year (three years running), two RITA Awards, and many
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Awards. Suzanne Brockmann lives in Sarasota, Florida, with her husband, author Ed Gaffney. Find Suz on Facebook at Suz Brockmann’s Troubleshooters World, and visit her website at
www.suzannebrockmann.com
.