The Mirrored World (18 page)

BOOK: The Mirrored World

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For all the talk about writing being a solitary endeavor, I was hardly lonely while writing this novel. I had a lot of help.

For assistance in my research, I am indebted to Professor Sara Dickinson, Università degli Studi di Genova; Sister Ioanna of St. Innocent Religious Community in Minnesota; Professor Derek Offord, University of Bristol; and Professor Christine Worobec, Northern Illinois University. For the gift of their perceptive early reads, I am grateful to Lynne Barrett, Debra McLane, and especially to my dear friend Kyra Petrovskaya Wayne for her help with all things Russian. What errors and infelicities remain are mine alone.

I am beholden to Claire Wachtel, a truth teller, for insisting that it must be better and then waiting another year while it got that way; and to the rest of the folks at HarperCollins who have turned a bunch of bytes into an
objet d’art
and then sent it out into the world. My thanks to Marly Rusoff and Michael Radulesçu for their friendship and wise counsel; I am just so lucky to know such mensches. That goes for Rachelle and Mitchell Kaplan; Kimberly and Les Standiford; Ellen Kanner and Benjamin Bohlmann; Michael and Paula Gillespie; and James W. Hall and the Lady Evelyn: our lives here in Miami would be a bust without them.

Everything I write is read first by my husband and in-house editor, Clifford Paul Fetters, and then improved immeasurably by his insights. There are not words enough to thank him for his patience and his commitment to what we do.

And lastly, in loving remembrance of my dear spaniel, Leo, a wise and holy fool in his own way. The muse lying under my desk during the writing of this book, he died peacefully the night before I sent out the completed manuscript.

About
the Author

D
EBRA
D
EAN
’s bestselling debut novel,
The Madonnas of Leningrad
, was a
New York Times
Editors’ Choice, a number one Booksense Pick, a
Booklist Top Ten novel, and an American Library Association Notable Book of the
Year. It has been published in twenty languages. Her collection of short
stories,
Confessions of a Falling Woman
, won the
Paterson Fiction Prize and a Florida Book Award. A native of Seattle, she and
her husband, poet Clifford Paul Fetters, now live in Miami where she teaches at
Florida International University.

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Also by Debra Dean

Confessions of a Falling Woman

The Madonnas of Leningrad

Credits

Cover photograph © Grant Faint/Getty Images

Cover design by Robin Bilardello

THE MIRRORED WORLD
. Copyright © 2012 by Debra Dean. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Epub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062198921

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dean, Debra, 1957– author.

The mirrored world : a novel / by Debra Dean. — First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-06-123145-2 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-06-221855-1 (International Edition)

1. Courts and courtiers—Fiction. 2. Russia—History—1689–1801—Fiction. 3. Saint Petersburg (Russia)—History—18th century—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3604.E149M57 2012

813'.6—dc23

2012015991