Fly By Night

ships, and perhaps beyond it the shimmering, much-dreamed-upon expanse of the sea…

‘You need someone to look out for you, Mr Clent. You’re a rotten liar. Good liars lie only when they need to. ’Sides, if I left you with Saracen you’d just eat ’im.’

Mosca held out her hand for Saracen’s leash, and after a moment’s hesitation Clent gave it back to her, with a small but ceremonious bow.

Disclaimer

This is not a historical novel. It is a yarn. Although the Realm is based roughly on England at the start of the eighteenth century, I have taken appalling liberties with historical authenticity and, when I felt like it, the laws of physics.

Author Biography

Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a huge, isolated old house on a hilltop in Kent that ‘wuthered’ when the wind blew and inspired her to write strange, magical stories from an early age. After leaving school she read English at Oxford University. Fly By Night, her first novel to be published, was immediately snapped up in several countries and has been shortlisted for a number of awards. Frances lives in Oxford.

Acknowledgements

I would also like to thank the following people: Maureen Waller for her fascinating and colourful book, 1700: Scenes from London Life, from which I learned about marriage houses, ‘a fair mark’ and countless other fascinating details of eighteenth-century life; the Duelling Association, for showing me a historical world full of wit, wickedness and panache; Colin Shaw of Roving Romania, who showed us around the wild countryside of that bruised and beautiful country, with its tiny shrines, name-day celebrations and ‘weddings of the dead’, and the denizens of Zehazel for all their support over the years.

Frances Hardinge

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