Each time I plan to take Cait and Bud on a journey, the place they travel to is somewhere I shall, as I write, also be visiting. Therefore, writing this book has been a particular delight, because it gave me a chance to revisit London, where I lived for seventeen years. I hope you enjoyed visiting places that mean a great deal to Cait…they do to me, too. The other wonderful thing about writing fiction is to be able to conjure places that have (as in the case of the restaurant Cait and Bud visit to indulge in some delicious desserts) disappeared, in real life. Now they’ll at least live on in this book.
This book has also given me a chance to play with my love of Shakespeare – a passion I developed during my time at Llwyn-y-Bryn school, in Swansea, under the tutelage of Mrs. Hammond and Mr. Lee, my two English Literature teachers during those years. Reading Shakespeare aloud is still one of my favorite things to do, and I find his use of language and storytelling to be an ongoing inspiration. I know I’m not alone in this, but at least I get a chance to acknowledge that enjoyment here.
Once again, I want to thank my ever-supportive sister, and Mum, in Wales: I speak to them on the phone every day, and they listen to me rant on about plot points, characters, storylines, and problems for months. Thanks for doing that. Also, my husband; he puts up with everything I’ve already listed, but also has to cope with my lack of focus on real life because I’m living in my created world for so long. Without his support and patience there’d be no books.
Thanks, too, as ever, to my editor Anna Harrisson, and to Sue Vincent, who checks my proofs; they both pulled out all the stops on this one to meet a much tighter-than-usual deadline.
Finally, there are the members of “our community” who’ve played a direct role in this book finding its way into your hands To my early readers (SA, JD, KA), thank you so much for helping me hone this story. To the bloggers, Facebookers, Tweeters, Instagrammers, reviewers, librarians, booksellers, organizers of online events, and festivals and conventions – thank you for doing whatever you did that helped this reader find this book.
And to you, dear reader, thanks for choosing to spend time with Cait Morgan and Bud Anderson.