Like many of my characters, I wasn’t sure I’d live to the end of this trilogy when I was writing it and I don’t really know what to say now that we’re here. It’s been such a huge part of my life for fifteen years and now it’s finished I’m a bit lost.
If you’ve stuck with me and my characters this far, thank you, thank you, thank you. You will probably never know just what it means to me. I hope I broke your hearts and made you cry at least once.
To my agent, Harry Illingworth of DHH Literary Agency – and everyone else there and at Goldsboro Books – thank you so much for your support and advice. Hard to believe how much we’ve accomplished in four short years, but I couldn’t have managed it without you. You’re the best. Here’s to the future!
To my glorious editor Natasha Bardon and all of the HarperVoyager team – Jane, Vicky, Jack, Jaime (amazing publicity), Richenda (copy editor extraordinaire) and Dom Forbes and Mike Topping (that glorious artwork) – where to start with the thanks? You made a dream come true for me and I’m forever grateful for all your efforts to make my little books into the wonderful, beautiful monsters they are.
Thanks also to Cameron McClure of Donald Maass and everyone at Louisa Pritchard Associates and the Marsh Agency for your foreign rights work, and thanks to those foreign publishers: Skyhorse in the US, Bragelonne in France, Blanvalet in Germany, Luitingh-Sijthoff in the Netherlands, Dobrovsky Publishing in the Czech Republic and Papierowy Ksiezyc/Caput Mundi Books in Poland.
To my husband, Mark, even I run out of words to express my gratitude for your love and support. You’re absolutely the better half of me and none of this would be possible without your belief and your willingness to put up with my weirder habits. I love you.
To all the family and friends who have supported me, cheered me on and been so happy and proud of what I’ve accomplished, thank you so much. I know I can be a nightmare sometimes but I do appreciate and love you all!
To the Fantasy Five – Mike, Kareem, Laura, JP and Sadir – I love you guys. Thanks for the support and all the fun times. Bang-average!
‘82’, as ever your beta-reading and military skillz made this a much better book than it would have been otherwise. Now finish your own, because I need to know what happens next.
To all my Warrior Queens, thanks for always having my back. Here’s to more shenanigans and may you all be blessed with an abundance of tales to tell.
And to the instructors and students at Birmingham HEMA Club – thank you for trying to teach me Italian longsword, and for the many, many stabbings along the way. I’m no Tara, despite your best efforts, but I have a lot of fun getting killed.
And again to the readers, because it’s all about you: read widely and enthusiastically. I have more stories, and I hope you’ll walk them with me. Thank you.