Table Of Content�prmoments,
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Post Mortem
Read More from Gina Damico
About the Author
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Copyright © 2013 by Gina Damico
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections
from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
www.hmhbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.
eISBN 978-0-544-15153-6
v1.0913
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For Gamma and Papa
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Acknowledgments
This may sound weird, but I must first and foremost give thanks to the following
things: bread, boredom, and crossword puzzles. This is because the idea for
Croak first popped into my head while I was working at a bread store, bored out
of my mind, and doing a crossword puzzle. This is the definitive, winning
formula for book ideas, folks. Write it down.
And what a strange, wonderful, carbo-loaded journey it’s been since then! It’s
hard to believe this series is over, and even harder to say goodbye to the
characters that have been renting a room in my noggin for all these years. I
know, I know—someone prep the straitjacket—but in my mind they’re all
Velveteen Rabbits: when you love them, they become real. I’ll miss them.
What’s that? I’m supposed to be thanking people who aren’t works of fiction?
Fine. As always, huge thanks to my agent, Tina Wexler, the dollop of ice
creiss>am to my deep-fried Oreo, who has truly made me a better writer, and
who, if she ever left her job as an agent—which she must NEVER EVER DO—I
think could make a real career out of being one of those cops who talks troubled
people down from very tall precipices.
Thank you to my editor, Julie Tibbott, for believing in these little stories of
mine, and for paying me awesome compliments like “I admire your willingness
to kill off your characters,” which is really just a polite way of saying, “I think
you might actually be a serial killer, and I’m fine with it.”
These books would be nothing but doorstops without the tireless efforts of
everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, including my publicist Jenny Groves—
who, when I tell her I want to plan borderline insane things like a two-week road
trip book tour, somehow approves of such madness—and Carol Chu, Betsy
Groban, Julia Richardson, and Maxine Bartow.
Thanks also to Stephanie Thwaites and Catherine Saunders at Curtis Brown
UK, who think that my stories have enough potential to cause international
incidents, and Liz Farrell and Katie O’Connor at ICM, and Audible, for allowing
me to assault my readers’ ears as well as their eyes.
Thank you to Kelley Travers, photographer extraordinaire, whom I have
unforgivably forgotten to thank until now, which is why she gets her very own
paragraph.
To the Apocalypsies and all the other authors I’ve had the fortune to meet in
the past year or so: you are some amazing people. Maybe a little too amazing,
actually. Knock it off.
Teachers and librarians: You are the glue that holds this world together. You
hear me? YOU ARE GLUE. Whenever I get to meet one of you, I’m bowled
over by your enthusiasm and love for spreading the magic of reading to students.
You make my cold, shriveled heart grow three sizes every time, and I so
appreciate and respect what you do.
To all the bloggers and booksellers that have spread the Croaky love: Thank
you so much for embracing these books, in all their offbeat glory. You, in all
your offbeat glory, rock.
Thank you to my family and friends, many of whom probably never would
have picked up a YA series about grim reapers on their own, but who genuinely
seem to enjoy it now that it’s been foisted upon them. I’m very grateful for your
love and support, and I promise next time to not write something so dark and
morbid. (Note: I will not keep this promise.)
To Alphonse Damico, Mary Damico, and Laurie Mezza-lingua: You are
missed. I hope you’re knocking elbows with some very cool people in the
afterlife.
To all the creatures living in my house: Will, thanks for staying married to me
even though the vows did not read “in sickness and in health, for richer or for
poorer, through first drafts and revisions, to the brink of insanity and back”;
Fezzik, you’re distracting, and you’ve now eaten roughly 85 percent of my
possessions but you’re still a very cute dog; Lenny and Carl, sorry we got a dog;
and to the squirrel that took up residence in our walls and basement during the
writing of this book, WTF GET OUT.
No thanks to leaf blowers, and the neighbors who use them constantly. It’s
called a rake, people.
Finally, thank you times a billion to you, the readers and fans. I can’t tell you
how much it means to me to hear back from all sorts of people—guys and gals,
teens and not-so-teens, humans and cyborgs—and learn that these stories and
characters have resonated with so many of you. It’s nice to know that if these
places I go to inside my head were real, there’d be a whole bunch of friends
there to hang out and drink Yoricks with me. I love you all.
Which is why I feel so bad about spring-loading these pages with blow darts.
Duck and enjoy!
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Description:Lex is a teenage Grim Reaper with the power to Damn souls, and it’s getting out of control. She’s a fugitive, on the run from the maniacal new mayor of Croak and the townspeople who want to see her pay the price for her misdeeds. Uncle Mort rounds up the Junior Grims to flee Croak once again, bu
