MY FAMILY COMES from Scheggino, a small medieval town in that part of Umbria known as the Valnerina. The first time I travelled there alone, I climbed the mountain to the neighbouring town of Caso, glimpsed the remains of giant Roman architecture slumbering in the hills, walked the stream where my family had poached trout from their window, looked out at the view that would become the Leap of Faith. I knew I wanted to set part of Dark Heir in those hills, and I had planned to return and re-walk the Valnerina as I had walked the Dark Peak in Derbyshire.
By the time I came to write Dark Heir, the pandemic had closed down the world; the airports and the streets were empty, and travel everywhere had stopped. I had to reconstruct Scheggino from memory, poring over my old journal entries, and unearthing my old photos taken before the age of digital cameras that seemed to be fading before my eyes. But perhaps, in the end, that was fitting.
Writing alone through the isolation of pandemic lockdown made each friend who stepped into the world of Dark Heir with me all the more precious: thank you to Vanessa Len, Anna Cowan, Sarah Fairhall, Jay Kristoff, Beatrix Bae and Tom Taylor, who read countless drafts, workshopped ideas and offered feedback. This book would not be the same without you.
Vanessa, our hotel lobby nights became blurry evening FaceTimes that I treasured as we sat on our respective couches with our headphones cutting in and out. Jay and Tom, our weekly writing day accompanied by toasties and chips are a creative joy. I will never forget the shellshock as we learned one afternoon while writing together that we would have to suspend our sessions because we were entering a third pandemic lockdown. To my geographically far-flung friends Anna, Sarah and Bea, our online writing sessions, calls and virtual company were lifelines.
Thank you also to Ellie Marney, Amanda C. Ryan, Amie Kaufman and Sarah Rees Brennan for your friendship and thoughtful insights, and to the gang of the Melbourne Writers Retreat, for invaluable friendship, support and advice.
I also have to thank those who were with me during the most intense times, Rita Maiuto and Luke Haag. Thank you for celebrating the highs and supporting the lows, and accompanying both with great wit, great taste and great food. Thank you also and especially to Jan Tonkin, who has enlarged my life beyond counting since our first meeting, and to whom I owe an enormous debt of gratitude.
Thank you to my wonderful agent, Tracey Adams, and to Josh Adams for your enthusiasm and support. Thank you to the team at Harper, in particular Rosemary Brosnan, and my editor Alexandra Cooper. In Australia, I have been so lucky to work with the incredible Kate Whitfield and Jodie Webster at Allen & Unwin; thank you both for your fantastic editorial work and all your help shaping the book.
Finally, thank you to Magdalena Pagowska for her stunning cover art, and to Sveta Dorosheva for a beautiful map of the Valnerina in 1821, as well as to the design team at Harper, who brought all the visual elements together.
Researching Dark Heir meant reading many Italian travel journals from the 1820s, including those of Mariana Starke, Charlotte Anne Eaton, Galignani and even Lord Byron, who travelled and lived in Italy, and who wrote in response to another mountain’s terrible eruption about a darkness that covered the world. In the strange timeless time of the pandemic those long-ago journeyers gave me a way to travel when I could not, and for that I owe them a great many thanks.