Red Famine, Anne Applebaum’s book about Stalin’s starvation of Ukraine, gave me a good idea of what the Martels went through before the war. I was aided in my understanding of the Holocaust and Soviet and German rule in Ukraine by the works of historians and writers Wendy Lower, Gail Gligman, Alexander Dallin, Joshua Rubenstein, Ilya Altman, Eric C. Steinhart, Diana Dumitru, Ray Brandon, Daniel Joseph Goldhagen, Gerald Reitlinger, Sefer Zikaron, Walter Koenig and Avigdor Shachen. Thank you all.

The writings of Dr. Alfred de Zayas gave me a deeper understanding of the expulsion of ethnic Germans across Central and Eastern Europe between 1944 and 1948. The research of Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz of Northwestern Oklahoma State University gave me insight into the SS transfer of ethnic Germans to the Warthegau region of Poland and their indoctrination into Hitler’s Greater Germany. I appreciate the guidance.

Silvia Lass-Adelmann was my translator for research at the Political Archives of the German Foreign Office in Berlin concerning the Long Trek. I was also helped by archivists at the Romanian National Archives in Bucharest, at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.

I am blessed to have gone to O&O Academy in India to learn the principles of the spiritual philosophy of “Oneness” from my incredible teachers Krishnaji, Preethaji, and Kumarji. All three sages ended up influencing my depiction of the character Private Kumar. My experience at O&O also informed many other parts of this book and ultimately changed my life for the better. Bless you all.

Thank you to my early readers: Damian Slattery, Connor Sullivan, and Betsy Sullivan.

I am grateful for Danielle Marshall, my editor at Lake Union Publishing, who has had unshakable belief in this project since the beginning, and to Mikyla Bruder, publisher of Amazon Publishing, who has also been a big supporter of the Martels’ story. Thanks go as well to developmental editor David Downing, copyeditor Jane Steele, and production editor Nicole Burns-Ascue for making the story stronger and the prose tighter.

Blessings also to my incredible publicity team—Ashley Vanicek at Amazon Publishing and Dana Kaye, Julia Borcherts, and Hailey Dezort at Kaye Publicity. I appreciate your getting the word out!

And a big double curtain-call bow to my literary agents, Meg Ruley and Rebecca Scherer, for reading and rereading and rereading the various drafts of The Last Green Valley. Your eyes and sensibilities make me a better novelist. Thanks also to Jane Rotrosen, Sabrina Prestia, and everyone else at the Jane Rotrosen Literary Agency who keep my writing dream alive.