I am grateful to many people: my husband, Jerry Warsh, for his support, as well as his medical expertise; my mother, Gena Maultash, for her memories of wartime Poland; my children, Nathaniel and Jessica, for their help in many ways; Dr. Herb Batt, for his enthusiastic creative help with the manuscript; my writing groups, for their constructive criticism and support, specifically Lynne Murphy, Rosemary McCracken, Joan O’Callaghan, Madeleine Harris, Cecilia Kennedy, Heather Kirk, Priscilla Galloway, Lorraine Williams, Vancy Kaspar, Barbara Kerslake, and Caroline Andrews. Thanks also to Dr. Ray Steinman for helping to unravel some medical questions, Neil Puype for architectural information, my editor, Barry Jowett, my marketing director, Beth Bruder, and my publisher, Kirk Howard, for their continued support.
The characters in the eighteenth-century “manuscript” are authentic historical figures. Though I have taken the liberty of putting my words into their mouths, I have tried to be faithful to actual events, with the exception of the “contradiction of written history” noted in the story.