ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you so much to everyone who critiqued this novel along the way: Patrick Samphire, Sarah Prineas, Justina Robson, Beth Bernobich, Marcy Bauman, Ben Burgis, David Burgis, Shawna McCarthy, and Delia Sherman. I appreciate your help so much!
Thank you to my historical performance professor at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, David Breitman, who was so helpful and generous when I emailed him out of the blue, many years after my graduation, to ask detailed questions about period-appropriate instruments. And thank you to Laurence Libin, who gave such thoughtful answers to my questions about the instruments that Charlotte would have played.
Thank you to all of my music history professors along the way, who inspired me with passion for the subject. Thank you to Des Harmon for first sparking my interest in the castrati singers of the eighteenth century through a fantastic talk given while we were grad students together. And thank you so much, especially, to Julian Rushton, my wonderful PhD supervisor at the University of Leeds, who helped me explore all the fascinating, intricate pathways of opera and politics in eighteenth-century Vienna and Eszterháza, and then supported me even when I decided to change careers completely. This is not exactly the book-length manuscript that you expected to result from my years of study . . . but I hope you enjoy it anyway!
Thank you so much to Jenn Reese for sending me such perfect feedback just when I needed it most, and to Justina Robson for baking me an amazing Esterházy torte in celebration when I finished the first draft of this book. Thank you to Rosalyn Eves for sending me photos of Eszterháza at just the right moment. And thank you to Tricia Sullivan for telling me to “Go for it!” so many times over the years.
Thank you so much to my husband, Patrick Samphire, for your love, support, insightful critiques, and great company on so many research trips to various palaces and historic sites across the years. Oh, do I know how lucky I am!
Thank you to Barry Goldblatt, Heather Baror-Shapiro, and Tricia Ready for so much hard work on my behalf, and thank you to my wonderful editor, Rene Sears, for bringing this book into the world and editing it so beautifully. Thank you to Sheila Stewart for thoughtful copyediting, to Peter Lukasiewicz for finding just the right blurbs, and to Lisa Michalski for publicizing Masks and Shadows so enthusiastically.
And finally, thank you so much to my readers—both the ones who are coming fresh to my work with this book and the ones who made the leap with me when I jumped between genres. I really appreciate it!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephanie Burgis grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, and was a Fulbright scholar in Vienna, Austria, where she studied music history, attended the opera as often as possible, and ate far too much apple strudel. After spending three years as a PhD student studying the opera and politics of eighteenth-century Vienna and Eszterháza, she moved into the more practical side of opera studies by going to work for an opera company in the north of England. Nowadays, she lives in a small town in Wales, surrounded by castles and coffee shops, with her husband, fellow writer Patrick Samphire, and their two sons. She’s published three historical fantasy novels for children and over thirty short stories for adults. You can find out more at her website: www.stephanieburgis.com.
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