Author’s Note
While this series is shameless fanfic of The China Garden and The Secret History—along with Strange Grace by Tessa Gratton, which I read the year I started A Lesson in Thorns—I was inspired by several works of non-fiction as well, especially the works of H.R. Ellis Davidson, Catherine Bell, Karen Armstrong, and Robert MacFarlane. (And obviously Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, but I’d use the term ‘non-fiction’ a little loosely there.)
All of the cross-quarter feasts and their attendant rituals have been very liberally interpreted by me, as I thought would best suit the narrative and also allow for the most angst (or the most s*x). My forever thanks to Robin Murphy, Tessa Gratton, and Natalie Parker for letting me bug them with alllll the questions, and also to Robin
