The Baker's Daughter

Acknowledgments

Enormous thanks to my editor, Kate Kennedy, whose masterful editorial skills, boundless support, and friendship fostered my creativity and helped the book bloom. To my publicist, Nora O’Malley, who jumped in banging the drum and never ceased. My Crown family is unparalleled.

Thanks to my agent team, Doris Michaels and Delia Berrigan Fakis, for loving this story from the start and for sharing it with German family members, survivors of this onerous period in Germany’s history. Their enthusiasm for the book was the ultimate stamp of approval. As well, many thanks to Paul Cirone and Molly Friedrich for friendship and wise counsel. Your generosity continues to astound me.

Thank you to the staff of Marina’s Germany Bakery in El Paso, Texas, and the German Community Center at Fort Bliss for graciously allowing me to visit, ask questions, and poke around. In researching this novel, I’m indebted to the countless World War II websites that kept me awake nights, horrified, fascinated, and unable to forget. To the survivors of this war, thank you for having the bravery to live. To their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, thank you for having the courage to share your history. As well, deepest appreciation to my students at the University of Texas at El Paso who trusted me with their personal immigration stories. Your words did not fall on deaf ears.

To my “person,” Christy Fore: no words can express how treasured your friendship is to me. Thank you for reading this and all my writing. Your insight and ability to graciously manage my obsessive-compulsive nature have been my Balm of Gilead on many a day.

I’m blessed and entirely beholden to my family. You are my lamps in this world. Thank you to my parents, Eleane and Curtis, my baby brothers, Jason and Andrew, the Norats, the McCoys, and everybody in between. Your infinite love, encouragement, prayers, and ability to make me laugh so hard I lose my balance have given my life a joyful and necessary equilibrium. Thanks for shepherding me through the good days and bad. Mom and Dad, thank you for reminding me that I can always “come home.”

Last, but most important, I thank God for my husband, Brian Waterman. Garmisch, Germany, is woven into both our childhoods and adult lives. Thank you for ceaselessly being my champion and my German translator; for reminding me that we all need a little holiday sometimes (preferably at a Deutschland B&B); for encouraging me to climb to St. Martin Hütte even though I thought it too high; for patiently cheering me up the rugged alpine path and providing celebration drinks at the summit. Every day you do the same. May we grow old greeting each dawn with, Guten Morgen, coffee drinkin’?