Chapter Author's Note
Phew. Another long book, which the characters entirely ran away with. I only managed to get two months further along in the historical timeline, so there is still a lot of story left to tell. I will start working on Book 9 soon.
I really did intend to do more with history in this book. I mean, it’s 1812. There’s a whole war named after that year. I’m planning to include it in the story, but only to the extent that it impacts our characters, so I don’t know how detailed that will be. Hopefully we’ll find out in the next book.
I think the character that I have taken the greatest liberties with is probably Thomas Butler, an actual historical guy. I even posted his portrait in one of the chapters. Apparently you can still visit his home in Louisiana, which I hope to do someday. I have no idea whether he was involved in the governor campaign in 1812 in Louisiana, but the timing just fits in with what I do know of his life.
Yellow fever really was a terrible problem until they figured out about a hundred years later what causes it. It is transmitted by mosquitoes, not from person to person. So if a mosquito bites an infected person, the next person they bite can get the disease. There still is no cure for it, and it can still be deadly, although there is a vaccine which is recommended for anyone traveling to countries where it is still common.
Gregor is not finished with me yet. I had an absolute hoot writing a side story, Three Immortals Walk Into a Bar, right in the middle of writing Darkness. It puts Gregor, along with Levant from the @Hollows book To the Wolves, and Clyde from the @Akaluv book Secret Shadows, together in the Atlanta Airport in modern times. Shenanigans ensue. It is the most fun I have ever had writing anything.
I still have probably three more books with Gregor in the past before I can finally go see what Natalie is doing. Unless he makes me write even more. When Gregor first came knocking on my door exactly one year ago and demanded that I come with him two hundred years into the past, I never imagined that I could write six books in a year featuring his story and be nowhere near finished yet.
But here we are.
Thanks for reading.