Author’s Note

The ‘Seven Sisters’ series is loosely based on the mythology of The Seven Sisters of The Pleiades, the well-known star constellation next to the famous belt of Orion. From the Mayans to the Greeks to the Aborigines, The Seven Sisters stars are noted in inscriptions and in verse. Sailors have used them as guiding lights for thousands of years and even a Japanese brand of car, ‘Subaru’, is named after the six sisters . . .

Many of the names in the series are anagrams for the characters that populate the legends, with relevant allegorical phrases used throughout, but it is not important to know anything about these to enjoy the books. However, if you are interested in reading more about ‘Pa Salt’, Maia and her sisters, then please visit my website, www.lucindariley.com, where the many legends and stories are revealed.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to thank Milla and Fernando Baracchini and their son Gui, as it was at their dining-room table in Ribeirão Preto that I first came up with the idea of writing a story set in Brazil. And the wonderful Maria Izabel Seabra de Noronha, the great-granddaughter of Heitor da Silva Costa, the architect and engineer of Christ the Redeemer, for so generously sharing her time and knowledge as well as her documentary De Braços Abertos (Arms Wide Open). And then sparing the time to read through the manuscript to check all the details were correct. However, this is a work of fiction, wrapped around real historical figures. And my portrayal of both Paul Landowski and the da Silva Costa family and his staff is down to my imagination, rather than fact. Valeria and Luiz Augusto Ribeiro for offering me their fazenda up in the mountains above Rio to write in – I never wanted to leave – and especially to Vania and Ivonne Silva for the pound cake and so much more. Suzanna Perl, my very patient guide to Rio and its history, Pietro and Eduardo, our lovely drivers, Carla Ortelli for her magnificent organisation – nothing was ever too much trouble – and Andrea Ferreira for being at the other end of the phone whenever I needed her to translate for me.

I would also like to thank all my publishers around the world for their support and encouragement when I announced to them that I would be writing a series of seven books based on The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. Particularly Jez Trevathan and Catherine Richards, Georg Reuchlein and Claudia Negele, Peter Borland and Judith Curr, Knut Gørvell, Jorid Mathiassen and Pip Hallén.

Valérie Brochand, my neighbour in the South of France, who so kindly went to the Landowski museum for me in Boulogne-Billancourt and took hundreds of photos, and Adriana Hunter, who translated Landowski’s enormous biography and collated the important facts. David Harber and his staff, who helped me understand the workings of the armillary sphere.

My ever-supportive mother, Janet, my sister, Georgia, and her son Rafe, who, at the age of nine, made The Midnight Rose his school reading book! Rita Kalagate, for telling me I would go to Brazil the night before I received an offer from my publishing house, and Izabel Latter for keeping me going in Norfolk and listening to me chunter on as she gently manipulates an aching body that has flown thousands of miles across the world or been hunched over a manuscript 24/7.