My agent Deborah Schneider recognized potential in my rough drafts twenty years ago. Thank you, Deborah, for taking me back after such a long absence and jump-starting my writing career. Thanks to Cathy Gleason and Victoria Marini at Gelfman Schneider for their hard work on my behalf.
Terry Goodman oversaw the publication of this novel. Terry, Lindsay was right. You are great. Your sense of humor carries the day. Thanks for stepping in as my acquisition editor and making this happen.
I appreciate my agents in London at Curtis Brown. Thank you Betsy Robbins, Sophie Baker, and Claire Nozieres for helping me connect with readers in other languages.
My editor Melody Guy worked hard with me on the novel, making suggestions throughout the manuscript that greatly improved the read. Thank you for your great patience and expertise, Melody.
My Amazon team—how do I love you? You send me Fran’s chocolate caramels, cheery emails, and good news. You help me to connect with readers every day, to my great joy. Thank you, Nikki Sprinkle, Jessica Poore, Gracie Doyle, and all the rest.
My thanks to the production team, including copyeditor Paul Thomason, Jackie Ball, Brent Fattore, and Michael del Rosario. Also, my gratitude to proofreader Elaine Caughlan. What a lot of care and research you put into this, with all the Turkish, Ottoman, and Greek words in my story.
Thanks also to the Amazon art department. You always knock my socks off!
Thanks for the arresting cover design by the BookDesigners.
Marly Rusoff, thank you for your hard work on early versions of this novel, so many years ago. Also thanks to Kim Witherspoon and David Forrer, who also believed in this novel.
Alev Lytle Croutier, Bonnie Kaslan, and Rain Yagmur Archuleta—thank you for your generous offers of help with Turkish, Ottoman, and Greek words. Meltem Sonmez, thank you for helping with pronunciation in reading the Brilliance audio version of the book.
And thanks to the good energy of my yoga instructors, who straightened out the kinks in my mind and body while I worked on the book! Thanks Marlon McGann, Bel Carpenter, and Joanne Connington.
My gratitude to my beloved parents, Betty and Fred Lafferty, who read to us every night as children before we went to sleep. Those Grimm’s fairy tales shaped my imagination at a tender age, sending their furling tendrils into my dreams. Is it any wonder I became a writer?
Gratitude to the Aspen Writer’s Foundation and director Julie Comins Pickrell for a scholarship awarded in the summer of 2004, where I worked on an early draft of this novel at Aspen Summer Words. Writer Ron Carlson taught me to “stay in the room.” As his student I learned to see more, use my senses as I lingered in a moment longer, rather than racing on to the next plot point. (Best writing advice anyone has every given me, Ron… and I kept the fig in the story.)
Thank you to Lisa Consiglio for her support through the years.
This book would never have been possible without the help of other authors’ research. At one point while researching this book, I had fourteen books marked with sticky notes, all spread out on my bed while writing one single chapter!
Some books that were invaluable—those I returned to time and time again—included: Philip Mansel’s Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire (1453-1924), St. Martins Press, 1998; The Imperial Harem of the Sultans, Memoirs of Leyla (Saz) Hanimefendi, Peva Publications, 1994; The Imperial Harem, Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Leslie P. Peirce, Oxford University Press, 1993; Lords of the Horizons, Jason Goodwin, Picador, 2003; The Ottoman Centuries, Lord Kinross, Harper Perennial, 1979; The Janissaries, Godfrey Goodwin, Saqi Books, 1979; Istanbul, John Freely, Penguin Books, 1998; Harem, The World Behind the Veil, Alev Lytle Croutier, Abbeville Press, 1991; Istanbul: Memories and the City, Orhan Pamuk, Vintage International Editions, 2006. My gratitude to these authors for their expertise that informed my prose.
Finally, thank you Andy Stone. You taught me the craft of writing and pure dedication. You have always been my first editor… and the love of my life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NORAFELLER.COM
The daughter of a naval commander, Linda Lafferty attended fourteen different schools growing up, ultimately graduating from the University of Colorado with a master’s degree and a PhD in education. Her peripatetic childhood nourished a lifelong love of travel, and she studied abroad in England, France, Mexico, and Spain. Her uncle introduced her to the sport of polo when she was just ten years old, and she enjoys playing to this day. She also competed on the Lancaster University Riding Team in England in stadium jumping, crosscountry, and dressage. A veteran school educator, she juggled teaching and working polo ponies while writing this book. She lives in Colorado.
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