The Ever After

Author's Note

Dear reader,

The book you are about to begin is infested with ghosts. I wrote it while living in a house that looked out on an old cemetery. My whole neighborhood was known for its hauntings and 'ghost tours' often passed by my front door, the tour guides pointing up to my windows as they walked by. Paranormal investigators would often leave notes in my mailbox asking to set up appointments.

By that time, ghosts had already been with me for as long as I could remember. I grew up listening for them when I climbed my stairs, hoping to spot them in the yard at night when I peered out my bedroom window. My childhood friends endured countless makeshift haunted houses I assembled in my garage.

By the time I decided to write my own ghost story, I was consumed by a question: Where do ghosts go during the day, when they're not hovering by our beds or creaking up and down the stairs in the dark? Where do they float off to to live their ghosty little lives?

I imagine it's something like the Ever After, the world that I created in this book. I imagine it's a little spooky, a little glow-y, a little melancholy, and a little funny: all these spirits from throughout the ages floating around with their own plans, their own apartments and amusement parks and favorite vacation spots and silly concerns.

I couldn't enter a world like this without a strong character to guide me, and soon I had two on my hands: May Ellen Bird -- a shy, strange girl with a knack for inventing things...and an under-loved hairless cat named Somber Kitty. When these two stumble upon the land of the dead, they enter a world that's spooky and cozy and epic at the same time, enticing but dangerous.

I hope you'll enjoy entering this world by their side. I can't imagine two more loyal companions, or a pleasanter way to get to know the other side of the things that go bump in the night.

Sincerely, 

Jodi