The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender (30 page)

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the constant love and support of my family and friends. Many thanks to Andrea Paris for inviting me over to her dad’s little white house on the reservoir when we were in eighth grade. The beauty of that place never left me. Thank you, David Seal, for telling me I was already a writer when I told you that was all I wanted to be, and Whitney Otto for believing this little book of mine was something worth reading. Liz Buelow, my first reader, for your brilliance, honesty, and all those late-night brainstorm sessions over sushi and sake.

Thank you to my girls — Anna, Annelise, Carissa, Duffy, Maren, Megan, Nova, Reba, Raquel, and Stephanie — who know me better than anyone and love me anyway. You are the strangest, most beautiful people I know, and I’m grateful for you every day. To my gorgeous students, thanks for making me laugh and for thinking I’m cool even though we all know I’m not. You’re the lights of my life. To my parents, thank you for allowing me to grow into a very imaginative (if not slightly delusional) adult. It’s served me well. My
irmã
, Nichele, thank you for always telling me like it is, and thanks as well to my three-year-old niece, Kaeloni, who’d never forgive her
tía
for not thanking her in her first book.

And finally, to my Good Luck Charm for being right all along. I can’t remember exactly what it was you said, but I swear I remember everything else.
Tenho saudades tuas.

xoxo

LESLYE WALTON
was born in the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps because of this, she has developed a strange kinship with the daffodil — she too can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Her debut novel,
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
, was inspired by a particularly long sulk in a particularly cold rainstorm spent pondering the logic, or rather, lack thereof, in love — the ways we coax ourselves to love, to continue loving, to leave love behind.

Leslye Walton has an MA in writing. When she’s not writing, she teaches middle-school students how to read and write and, most important, how to be kind to one another, even on days when they don’t really feel like it. She is currently working on her next novel. Leslye Walton lives in Seattle.