Читать книгу Sheikh's Mail-Order Bride - Marguerite Kaye - Страница 3

Author Note

The notion of having an astronomer heroine first occurred to me when I was researching Julia, the botanist heroine of the first book in this series, and stumbled across Caroline Herschel, sister of William—who discovered Uranus—in Richard Holmes’s brilliant book The Age of Wonder. I share my heroine’s sense of awe when looking up at the sky on a clear night—although, unlike Constance, when I first started on this book I had no idea what I was actually looking at.

It struck me, as I read up on the history of astronomy, that although today we know exponentially more—not only about our own galaxy but about the billions of others in the far-flung reaches of the universe—that the feeling of our humbling insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and the excitement of knowing there must be as yet undiscovered wonders out there, would be very similar to what she would have felt two hundred years before. In this sense I felt a true affinity with my stargazing heroine.

Sadly, living in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland, I find clear nights are a rarity, but writing this book has ignited a new passion which finds me huddled up under blankets in the darkest spot of the garden with my guide to the night sky. I should say at this point that my enthusiasm still far exceeds my knowledge, so any errors I’ve made in Constance’s celestial observations are entirely my own.

I hope you enjoy escaping to this romantic fantasy kingdom as much as I did when writing about it.