Coming to Logres

After The Warmest Promise of Morning became a success, I found myself in a peculiar bind. My books were being read aloud in parlours by people who had never spoken to me and my words were being cited by clergy who misunderstood them, and worse, who sanitised them. 

At the same time, letters began to arrive from overseas. Readers in a different, louder country wrote things like, “Your heroines hesitate, and it makes me feel seen," and,“Thank you for letting love be difficult.”

One letter came from a small publisher across the ocean in Logres who didn’t ask me to soften anything. They asked me to write more honestly. The letter was the first thing I packed.

I booked passage on the SS Auroral Grace, a grand but slightly old-fashioned ocean liner with sweeping staircases, a string quartet and a chapel tucked away awkwardly between the smoking room and the library. 

I travelled second class on purpose. First class had expectations. Second class had conversations.

The voyage was long, 12 days in total, and I spent my time writing in the mornings on deck, drinking terrible tea with dock workers, widows, missionaries, and one retired illusionist and blessing seasick children when no one was looking

Halfway through the crossing, a storm struck. Panic. Screaming. Prayers shouted at the wrong gods. I went below deck and sat with the frightened, holding hands, telling a story I had never written down, a love story about two people who survived because they waited for each other.

The storm passed. 

I arrived in Logres with a trunk of clothes, a second trunk of drafts and revisions and a publishing contract.