To you, lovely reader, who has taken a gamble on a book about tea-drinking, mystery-solving dragons. And local politics. Whether it’s your first time in Toot Hansell or your fourth, thank you. You are entirely awesome.
As always, to all my wonderful reading and writing friends, who have encouraged, cheerleadered (that’s a word. I’m a writer), beta-read, critiqued, given feedback, shared bad jokes, and generally been amazing and wonderful and made me feel so very lucky to know you. You know who you are. You are amazing.
To Lynda Dietz at Easy Reader Editing, who is unfailingly funny, wonderful, supportive and just generally one of the best people I know. She really does the most extraordinary job of making sure I don’t embarrass myself with confusing word order (especially the question of whether the garden or the person smells of cut grass) and the weird UK/US English hybrid that I speak. Any mistakes left in are mine. Except for cheerleadered. That’s a word.
And, always, to Mick, who knows the best recipes for cakes, the oddest Yorkshire phrases, and the most effective way to calm frazzled writers.
It tends to involve cake, tea, and belief. Powerful things, those.
I did not forget the Little Furry Muse. How could I? But I’m trying not to draw her attention to Thompson. He’s being far too cooperative for her tastes.