Wonderland (34 page)
Authors: Jennifer Hillier
Author’s Note
A
s fiction writers love to do, I took reality and warped it a little bit. Readers who are familiar with the Pacific Northwest region of the United States will notice that I’ve played around with geography, as I tend to do in all my stories. For instance, there is a town called Seaside in Oregon, but there isn’t one in the state of Washington. As far as I know, the fictional Seaside and the real Seaside are nothing alike.
There are several amusement parks throughout the world with the name Wonderland, including one just north of Toronto, where I grew up. However, Canada’s Wonderland is nothing like the Wonderland I created for this story. It does not have a clown museum (and if it did, I would never, ever go in there), nor to my knowledge does it have an underground tunnel leading to a dungeon where bad things happen. The Wonderland in this book is a mix of the real Wonderland I knew, the CNE (the Canadian National Exhibition, which is a huge fair in Toronto that happens every August), and my own demented imagination.
And one last (hopefully fun) tidbit: I had no idea Jerry Isaac was going to be in this book until I wrote the page where he was first mentioned. He was not in the proposal I submitted to my editor a year before this book got published. Characters are surprising that way . . . or at least they are for me, as I don’t outline my stories in advance. If you’ve read
Creep
and
Freak
, I hope you were as happy to see Jerry as I was. It’s always awesome when old friends show up.
Acknowledgments
I
t took me a full year to write
Wonderland
, and while I technically wrote the book alone, I had a lot of help with everything else in my life.
I am so grateful to my husband, Darren Blohowiak, for being superdad and superhusband, and supereverything else I needed in order to complete this book. I started writing
Wonderland
six months before I gave birth, and I finished it shortly after our son turned six months old. It was a crazy, exhausting, stressful, and amazing time, and I could not have done it without you. Thank you for understanding how important this book was to me, and for helping me make it happen. I love you.
My agent, Victoria Skurnick, is my navigator, arbitrator, negotiator, protector, and defender when it comes to all things publishing. She also happens to be one of the sweetest, kindest people I know. Thank you for always taking care of me.
My editor, Natasha Simons, is a joy to work with. I’m not sure how she does it, but she manages to make the very tedious process of editing my own book an almost painless endeavor (I’d say fun, but then she’d totally know I was lying). Thank you for believing in
Wonderland
, and for taking my vision and making it better. To everyone else at Gallery Books and Pocket Star, thank you! It’s been a pleasure working with you wonderful folks for the past five years.
My family rocks. Mom, Dad, and John, thanks for being proud of what I do, and for all your encouragement. To my in-laws, the Blohowiaks, thank you for being so supportive. It’s an honor to be part of your family. A special shout-out to my aunt and uncle, Regina and Alex Perez, for being like second parents to me in so many ways. I love you guys.
My friends rock, too. You know who you are—you got me drunk at my Las Vegas wedding, and if that doesn’t bond us for life, I don’t know what else would. Thank you for being there for the biggest moments of my life, and also for the tiny ones that happen every day. You’re the greatest cheerleading squad a girl could ever ask for.
A special thank-you to McKenzie Nelson for her tireless energy taking care of my son while I was holed up in my office writing every day. Everyone in the neighborhood probably did think you were a teen mom, but that’s only because Mox loved every moment he spent with you.
Someday, Maddox John, I hope you read this book and think it’s cool you were growing inside me when I wrote it. I also hope you’ll think it’s cool to be named after a fictional serial killer—your mom has a warped sense of humor. I didn’t know you were going to exist five years ago when I first created Abby Maddox, but now it all makes sense. You are the reason for everything. Like the Jamaican palm reader told me, you were coming. It was certain. And now here you are, and I couldn’t love anything in the world more than I love you.
Don’t miss these other edge-of-your-seat thrillers from Jennifer Hillier!
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About the Author
J
ennifer Hillier is the author of the psychological thrillers
Creep
,
Freak
, and
The Butcher
. Born and raised in Toronto, she currently lives in the Seattle area with her husband and son. Find her at jenniferhillier.ca.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
authors.simonandschuster.com/Jennifer-Hillier
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
If you enjoyed
Wonderland
, don’t miss these other fantastic titles from Jennifer Hillier:
Creep
[HC 9781451625844
MM 9781451669350
EB 9781451626896]
Freak
[HC 9781451664546
MM 9781451664553
EB 9781451664560]
The Butcher
[HC 9781476734217
MM 9781476734231
EB 9781476734224]
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Pocket Star Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Hillier
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Pocket Star Books ebook edition October 2015
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Cover design by James Perales
Cover images: clown © Alexander Bark/Shutterstock; background texture © Neil Lang/Shutterstock; amusement park © Ann Cutting/Trevillion Images
ISBN 978-1-5011-1518-9
CONTENTS
