I began writing Marvelous around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. Under perfect circumstances (and with my dream travel budget!) I’d have been able to physically visit all the places Pedro and Catherine lived, to walk where they walked, to experience, as closely as possible, their lives in the palaces of France and Italy and in the towns of Garachico and Capodimonte. To visit their portraits, and those of their children.
Of course, given the state of the world, travel wasn’t even a faint possibility. But the pandemic did do one favor for struggling historical fiction writers—a number of museums decided to throw open their doors, virtually speaking, to online visitors, meaning that exhibits that would usually require a plane ticket and the price of admission to see were suddenly free and easily accessible. I am particularly thankful for the staff video tours posted on social media by Château de Fontainebleau, which gave me the sense that I was almost right there in the grotto, the galleries, the halls, and the grounds, seeing what my characters would have seen. All books are a product of much more than just their authors’ hard work, and I am indebted to a lot of people who were incredibly generous with their time, their knowledge, and their space. As I mentioned already, Marvelous was written during the pandemic, and all my usual away-from-home writing spots—the public library, local coffeeshops, our food co-op—were shuttered. I found myself at home with three kids, struggling to write during my youngest son’s naps, constantly interrupted. But my mom and stepdad, Chris and Abbie Innes, offered me space on Sundays in their little upstairs landing area (my “writer’s garret,” we took to calling it), in addition to providing bottomless cups of coffee and home-cooked meals. Thank you both for quite literally fueling my writing—and also for being early readers! I’m so grateful.
Thank you to my other early readers as well, including Ashley Barbour for your careful sensitivity read (and for talking me down from a panic multiple times when I found myself stuck in the course of writing!); Rebecca Howe; and Natalie Jenner. Natalie, this book would be so much poorer without your insights.
Thank you to Merry Wiesner-Hanks and Touba Ghadessi for sharing your expertise about Pedro and Catherine’s day-to-day lived experience in the French Renaissance court.
Thank you to my agent, Jennifer Weltz, for helping me keep the heart of this story in mind as I wrote, and for never being afraid to gently but firmly tell me when something wasn’t working!
Thank you to the entire team at William Morrow—it absolutely takes a village to raise book babies, and I’m so glad to have landed in this one! Thank you, in particular, to Dill Werner for your thoughtful sensitivity read, to Shelly Perron for your careful copyedits, and to my brilliant editor, Rachel Kahan; your editorial choices always make my writing so much stronger.
As always, I have to thank my husband, Stuart Campbell. I am so lucky to have married a dreamer—one who believes in my dreams as fully as he believes in his own. Thank you with all my heart for your belief, and for so unstintingly giving me the practical space and time I need to make my dreams a reality.
And to my kids: I know you don’t always like or understand it when I need time to myself to write, but know this—you are never, ever far from my mind, even when I’m at my desk with the door firmly closed. As I wrote this book about love and marriage and family, you were with me the entire time.