The Woman with the Blue Star, Pam Jenoff [highly recommended books txt] 📗

connect now more than ever, the tribe of writers who lift each other, the readers who never stop believing.

This book would not be possible without so many people. I am forever grateful to my “dream team”—my beloved agent, Susan Ginsburg, and my epic editor-who-is-more-like-a-coauthor, Erika Imranyi, for their passion and commitment to making this book the very best it could be. My deepest thanks also goes to my wonderful publicist, Emer Flounders, and the many talented people at Writers House and Park Row and Harlequin and HarperCollins. (Looking at you, Craig, Loriana, Heather, Amy, Randy, Natalie, Catherine and so many others!) My gratitude for their time and talent is always immense, and even more so as they persevere in these challenging and unprecedented times.

I’m so thankful for the many people in Kraków who provided their assistance and expertise. First, my dear friends Barbara Kotarba and Ela Konarska at the US Consulate in Kraków, who helped me with trip planning when I thought I was going to Kraków and with long-distance resources when I discovered that I could not. I’m grateful to Anna Maria Baryla for her expertise on Kraków and the Polish language, and to Jonathan Ornstein of JCC Kraków for putting us in touch, and to Bartosz Heksel for his expertise on the Kraków sewers. I am indebted to amazing fact-checker Jennifer Young and copy editor Bonnie Lo. As ever, the mistakes are all mine.

I would like to thank all of the essential workers. I’m thinking of the doctors and nurses and health care workers, whose amazing work I witnessed firsthand when I was in the hospital. I am also extremely grateful for the grocery employees who have kept us fed, the delivery folks who have brought what we need, the teachers who show up every day, whether in person or online. None of what we do would be possible without you.

Being apart from the people we love has undoubtedly been the hardest part of this quarantine. I am sending all of my love and gratitude to my mom, Marsha, who is everything to us and helps with kids and puppy and much more so I can write; to my brother, Jay; to my in-laws Ann and Wayne; to dear friends Steph, Joanne, Andrea, Mindy, Sarah and Brya. May we all be together again soon.

Finally, and most of all, to those who have suffered me in quarantine, my beloved husband, Phillip, and the three small muses, I give all my thanks and love. I am grateful for the time together at home this quarantine has given us, the lazy mornings and long walks and countless hours in the backyard. I’m especially awed by the resilience of my kids and for the bond among them that has made all of this easier to bear. They give me hope that we will come out of all of this stronger and closer for the struggle.

ISBN-13: 9781488073915

The Woman with the Blue Star

Copyright © 2021 by Pam Jenoff

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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