Читать книгу A Ring For The Pregnant Debutante - Laura Martin, Laura Martin - Страница 4

Author Note

I never thought I would write a romance in which one of the protagonists lives under the shadow of the threat of an inherited disease! It isn’t a subject that immediately lends itself to images of happiness and passion. However, complex neurological disorders are an issue very close to my heart, and when I found myself wondering what it would be like to live two hundred years ago with one of these diseases I couldn’t let the idea go.

Although not identified in the book, the disease running in Thomas Hunter’s family is Huntington’s disease—a hereditary disorder of the central nervous system. If a parent is affected, his or her children will all have a fifty per cent chance of developing the disease. This we know today, from modern clinical research, but in 1820—when genetics and theories on modes of inheritance were far into the future—a disease that ran in the family would often be thought of as a curse. There was no way of knowing if you would be affected, and when I was planning this book I couldn’t let go of the thought of the unimaginable strain that lack of knowledge would put someone under.

I have tried to be as accurate as possible in Thomas’s descriptions of the disease his father and brother died from, but as with many illnesses it affects people differently. What I hope is accurate is Thomas’s journey to accepting the uncertainty his future holds, and allowing himself a little happiness on the way.