Because the world is a seriously fucked-up place.

You have to, because beauty is out there, and it’s worth every sacrifice we make to seize it.

It’s worth it even if we don’t get to keep it.

Note from the Author

Dear readers,

What happened to Caroline is called “revenge porn” or “nonconsensual pornography,” and it sucks. It’s also perfectly legal everywhere in the United States with the exception of New Jersey.

Revenge porn is a form of abuse that uses sexual imagery without the consent of the women (or men) pictured as a way of shaming, hurting, and denigrating its victims. It happens all the time, right out in the open, with the consent of our legal system.

It needs to stop.

If you’d like to learn more about revenge porn or lend your voice to support its criminalization, I’d urge you to visit End Revenge Porn (www.endrevengeporn.org), a campaign that is working to raise the public profile of this issue, support victims, and lobby legislators to change the law.

All best wishes,

Robin York

Acknowledgments

I’d like to extend a personal thank you to all of the women who have chosen to speak out about their experiences as the targets of nonconsensual pornography. Their stories shaped this one, and I can only hope that Deeper will play a small part in raising awareness of revenge porn and changing public attitudes for the better. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

In writing Deeper, I benefited enormously from the support of the team at Random House. A huge thank you to my editor, Shauna Summers, who was invaluable in helping me shape the story, and to associate publisher Gina Wachtel, whose enthusiasm for West and Caroline made the writing a pleasure (mostly).

In this, as in all my writing endeavors, I would have been lost without the help of my friends-slash-critique-partners. Mary Ann Rivers has always understood West better than I have, and thank goodness for that. When I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next, she told me. She also wrote Caroline-and-West fanfic for me when I was feeling weepy about the ending of this book, which I had no choice but to gild and put it in a special folder because it was so awesome. (There was spanking involved.)

My agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, and my most excellent friend Serena Bell both read successive drafts with flattering avidity and offered a million excellent suggestions for improvement. Deeper is a better book for their feedback.

I’m also indebted to a number of people for sharing their thoughts and experience at the research phase of this book, including Maisey Yates, Phoebe Dantoin, Morgan Tuff, Laura Bickle, and Curt Johnson. My brother, Austin, reminisced with me about his nights as a baker, and I supplemented his memories by watching the adorable Vincent Talleu’s YouTube bakery videos six or eight times. Or ten. Who’s counting?

My thanks, too, to the Not by Bread Alone bakery in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where baker Angela allowed me to shadow her in the wee hours one weekday morning.

Few characters have given me as much pleasure and satisfaction to write as West and Caroline. I hope I’ve done them justice. Any and all mistakes that remain are my own.

ROBIN YORK grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.

www.robin-york.com

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