The Thief Taker (35 page)

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Acknowledgments

Books are a funny business. When I first started writing for publication, female authors of historical thrillers were a hard sell. Agents and publishers agreed my stories had something, but they thought I should be more like Philippa Gregory. Then a miracle happened. My brilliant twin sister (and bestselling author), Susanna Quinn, introduced me to the world of self-publishing. And in a fit of optimistic experimentation, I penned a romance novel which went on to sell 150,000 copies.

Suddenly it wasn’t quite so important to be published. But fate is a fickle thing. And just at that moment I met the most amazing agent and friend in Piers Blofeld, who thought my historical thrillers deserved an audience. Piers found lots of publishers who wanted
The Thief-Taker
. And its strength, they felt, was it wasn’t like Philippa Gregory at all.

So this book is dedicated to the many people who helped me on the long road to publication. Thanks to Kevin Harris, for giving great feedback on far too many early drafts, Laura Langthorne (on whom Maria is based), for perfect improvements and Don Quinn for suggesting Maria shouldn’t die, and that a few more brothels wouldn’t go amiss. And where would I be without my soulmate Simon Avery, whose contrasting shouts of ‘this is brilliant!’ and ‘this is boring!’ have made the book what it is? Emilie Marneur at
Amazon
Publishing, you are not only gracious enough to treat me as a fellow professional, but you introduced me to the eagle-eyed Katie Green, who did amazing editorial work on the book. If Carlsberg made publishers they would look something like yours.
I’ve also been fantastically lucky with the incredibly generous Peter James, Simon Toyne and Louise Voss. I am forever indebted to your kind testimonials. You are all proof positive that hugely successful authors are kind beyond belief. Finally, my enormous gratitude goes to the Amazon self-publishing platform, which has made it possible for me, and many others, to achieve paid employment as a writer.

Oh, and not forgetting my sincere thanks to Philippa Gregory ;)

About the Author

Photo © Richard Bolls

C.S. Quinn is a travel and lifestyle
journalist
for
The Times
,
The Guardian
and
The Mirror
, alongside many magazines. Prior to this, Quinn’s background in historic research won prestigious postgraduate funding from the British Art Council. Quinn pooled these resources, combining historical research with first-hand experiences in far-flung places to create
The Thief Taker’s
London
.