Newt's Emerald

Author’s Note

I wrote the first version of this book many years ago, between 1990 and 1991. Back then, it was a book within a book, a thriller set in a publishing house that receives a Regency romance manuscript which contains clues to a criminal conspiracy. As I love both genres, I thought this was a wonderful idea, but the publishers of the time did not share my view. Later, I reluctantly had to agree that while the idea was interesting, my execution of it was not. The two books did not work as one.

Over time, the thriller portion of this combined book became more and more out-dated (it was before mobile phones and a significant plot point involved 3.5 inch floppy disks) and so it remains in a bottom drawer and there it will stay.

However, Newt’s Emerald did not have such problems, and every now and then I transferred the manuscript to a new computer and read it again and thought about doing something with it. Finally, earlier in 2013, I decided the time had come. I figured it wouldn’t be much work, but as per usual, I was wrong. This book is substantially different from that earlier manuscript. It is more than a third longer, and departs significantly in terms of plot and character. However, in essence it is still the same story.

As anyone who reads Regency romances knows the ‘founding mother’ of the genre is Georgette Heyer, and Newt’s Emerald would never have been written if I had not discovered a cache of her books when I was about thirteen. I also owe a debt to Jane Austen and Patrick O’Brian. All three are favourite authors of mine, and one of the great “research” pleasures I engaged in during the rewriting of this book was to re-read all of Heyer’s Regency romances, most of Austen, and the entire Aubrey-Maturin series. Again.

These are some of the influences, along with numerous others for the fantasy elements, including those trusty companions, myth and legend. Anything good in the book can undoubtedly be put to the account of these influences. Anything less good must be claimed as my own.

I must also thank Kali Ciesemier for a wonderful cover; my agent Jill Grinberg and her team; and as always, my wife Anna, my children Thomas and Edward, and all my family and friends.