The Earl's Childe (42 page)

Now, the royal family in Heather's world is entirely made up. Even before the U.S. was awash with “All Things Royal” news, I knew I didn't want to take any chance of offending someone real. While some current facts did inform me of how I'd structure the family—I totally love a ruling queen, though Margaret is younger than Elizabeth II—I gave them all their own backstories, especially Christopher and Maryan.

While the current Prince Harry did sneak off to combat in the recent Iraq war, Christopher snuck off during the first one (because while this is an alternate universe to ours, I kept a lot of important events). Maryan—well, she came into the story because of Joe.

When I “saw” Joe in my mind, he was of Middle Eastern descent. And that had an awful lot of implications for his family and required an awful lot of research on politics and British Imperialism to figure it out. Fortunately, one of my writers' groups (Hi, Sery & Southbridge folks!) all but dedicated an entire meeting to helping me research this. We discovered that the country of Bahrain had been a protectorate of the United Kingdom, and didn't declare independence until 1971, but then remained an ally and a part of the United Nations. It was also declared a kingdom shortly after the country achieved independence. Its relationship with Britain remained friendly, and it is still a country of high wealth, so it worked as a Middle Eastern area that Maryan could come from and still be allowed to marry Christopher and, eventually, take up the mantle of queen if he chose to so name her.

That bit of research happened while I was writing
The Kelpie
. I hadn't even planned to have Joe in
The Earl's Childe
(though Tony and Joe's invisibility ring were things I had been planning on for some time). However, my friend and beta-reader, Darby, adored Joe, and I couldn't bear to crush her by not having him in this story at all. Right about when I was considering including Joe in
The Earl's Childe
(around 2011), actual riots broke out in Bahrain due to conservative sects. Of course, that would be dangerous to Joe and his family, and a good reason for them to have to come back from their trip to see Maryan's family. The fact I'd already set the story in 2011, with
Kelpie
, also fit.

Still, I was already feeling a little uneasy in giving the Middle Eastern family a lamp and djinni (though that is a story of the culture, and one that fits well into the building of Heather's world), but now I was adding the problematic stereotype of violent Middle Eastern families. I hope that explaining the research behind this particular storyline helps, though…and perhaps inspires readers to research everything to find their own truths—be it in fictional worlds or their own.

Acknowledgements

Once again, I'm happy to write my “thank you” section!

The most thanks must go to Scott, the Husband-of-Awesome, who regularly puts up with my writing binges, crazy monitoring of sales and numbers, ridiculous travel, and demands of him beta-reading because he's always honest. For the Deadline Dinners, the leftover cleaning, and the random abandonment to get writing done—Thank You to the Infinite Power! I love you.

Also, much thanks and love to my family, especially Mom and Travis—and Dad, who's keeping an eye on all of us from Heaven. You all have been nothing but supportive in my writing dreams. Thank you all for coming to my releases, giving me ideas for marketing, listening to me whine, letting me crash at your homes for events, and celebrating my achievements. A writer couldn't ask for a better family! (Oh…and thank you for all the positive family role-modeling that gets included in the book!)

Besides my immediate family, I've been blessed with a wonderful “family” of friends, colleagues, and supporters who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help Heather, Kyra, and all my “babies” do well in the world.

My Spencer Hill Press and Spencer Hill Middle Grade family are also made of awesome, and I thank them muchly, too! Thank you to Kate Kaynak, for being the Grand Poobah and creating the home for our dreams. Jenn Carson and Laura Ownbey, I couldn't ask for a better team of editors. Jenn, you can slay words like an avenging knight, and Laura, you catch things I'd kick myself (or that Rich would kick our collective butts) for missing. Sunder, thank you for further word-slayage, catching so many little things, and being the “fresh eyes” we needed! Rich “Platinum” Storrs, you continue to earn your nickname in both your critical eye, your kind support, and as a gauge to monitor my growth as a writer. Jenn AP, very special thanks for being my publicist champion on so many levels— as well as for being on the other side of the phone when I really needed it. Thank you, Damaris, for organizing my blog tour and helping with the publicist work. And finally, Jessica, another special Thank You to you for all the organizing, problem-solving, and butt-saving you do behind the curtain!

To Traveling Java, who read
The Earl's Childe
and all of Heather's adventures before anyone—sometimes in serious “z” draft messiness—I also can't thank you enough for your amazing feedback and love!

There are many, many more of you who I want to thank for all your support…but I promised this set of acknowledgements would be shorter than my last two. But, truly, thank you to the very many of you who helped me bring my books into the world, who buy and share and enjoy them, who have given me a corner to write in or sent me a kind note, who have given me reviews or asked someone to carry my books. You're making a dream come true—and that's the greatest gift one can give. Thank you.

A portion of the net profit of each copy of
The Earl's Childe
will be donated to the Bay State Equine Rescue, a 100% volunteer-run 501(c)3 organization in Massachusetts, whose mission is to help abused, abandoned, and neglected equines through direct intervention, community outreach, education, and legislation. For more info, visit
www.baystaterescue.org

Can two friends, not good enough for either of their cultures or families, manage to keep each other safe when several different worlds threaten their lives?

About the Author

T.J. Wooldridge is the child-friendly persona of Trisha J. Wooldridge, who reviews dining establishments in Faerie for her local Worcester-area paper (much to all the natives' confusion) and writes grown-up horror short stories that occasionally win awards (EPIC 2008, 2009 for anthologies
Bad-Ass Faeries 2
and
Bad-Ass Faeries
3). Her novels include
The Kelpie
(December 2013) and
The Earl's Childe
(December 2014) in The MacArthur Family Chronicles, and
Silent Starsong
(July 2014) in the Adventures of Kyra Starbard series.