So here goes … My editor Matilda Richards is a huge supporter of my work, and it’s brilliant to be able to talk to someone who empathises so completely not just on series direction, but also on vital things such as the correct placement of commas. Jamie Wolfendale and Maria Fallon, also of The History Press, have worked tirelessly to promote my books, and neither of them minded being contacted, probably more often than absolutely necessary, by an author who is a bit clueless about marketing. Stephanie Tickle and Andrew Bunbury, my two best critical friends and readers, neither of them afraid to call a spade a spade, went through early drafts of Whited Sepulchres in great detail and offered many helpful insights and suggestions. The fact that they frequently came up with completely different and opposing comments about the same passages only made the redrafting process more interesting. I’m very grateful to Sarah Jones, equine vet, for her advice on horses. My questions on how to train and ride them, and how they might react in certain circumstances, were probably fairly straightforward; the one on how somebody might go about putting down a crippled horse with only a hunting knife to hand probably less so.
