Afterword
The Bodleian and the Upper Library at Merton College both make appearances in this story, and I wanted to write them as they actually were. And in Merton's case, still are.
The Upper Library at Merton is the oldest continuously functioning academic library in the world, its oak panelling and wagon roof installed during the precise decades when Matteo di Bianchi might plausibly have walked its floors.
At the heart of this story is a quieter kind of love than I usually write.
Millie is a young woman managing an estate, a household, and a father whose mind comes and goes.
A circumstance that, in the early nineteenth century, had no name and no support, only the unspoken expectation that a daughter would simply absorb it.
Nicholas is a man learning, painfully and against his preference, to stop narrating his misfortunes and begin owning his life.
They are both, in their own ways, very tired people.
I wanted to see what happened when two such people stopped performing and met the right partner to help them find the joy of living.
I am eager to uncover the secret of Matteo's lost cathedral and the long, dangerous shadow of the Regis Aeterni in the final chapter of Inconvenient Ventures.
If you enjoyed this story, I would be incredibly grateful if you'd consider leaving an honest review. Your words help others discover the book and support future stories.
The next book of the Inconvenient Ventures turns to Lorenzo, who has chased the ghost of his ancestor across the better part of England, and who is about to learn that the solution to his quest rests in the hands of a rather unusual young woman with troubles of her own.
Read The Beloved Escapade for a story of obsession, reluctant alliance, and a Florentine who discovers something more profound than a long lost relic.