Resurrectionists (71 page)

“I don’t know. China?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s China. Maybe the Middle East?”

He shrugged and went into the toilet. She leaned her head against the window and sighed. The daylight made her eyes hurt.

“I have no idea where I am,” she said, and her breath fogged the window. Below, the world kept turning towards home.

My sincerest thanks to Selwa Anthony, for ongoing service above and beyond the call of duty; to the twee temptresses Norna Scott and Hannah Collingridge at the University of York, for their help with details of Anglo-Saxon religion and language (all misuse of the info is entirely my responsibility); to Louise Cusack and Jan McKemmish who read and commented on the story in its earliest drafts; and to Mirko Ruckels for help with the particulars of music theory and opera singing (and also just for being a sweetie). The support of my friends and family is always appreciated, but special thanks must be extended, as always, to Kate the Great (B.F.).

From the author

I was born in London, and my family brought me to Australia when I was four. I grew up near the seaside in a creepy old Queenslander. Underneath it I had a cubbyhole where I used to go to write. I'd fill endless exercise books with earnest beginnings of stories, but didn't actually manage to finish my first novel until I was eleven. It was a story about three orphans who inherited a haunted house and somehow got mixed up with an international diamond smuggling ring. I wish I still had it, but I burned it in a fit of teenage disdain. During my teenage years, I wrote reams of

unimaginative fantasy fiction, in which an unpopular buck-toothed girl saved the world. Then I got braces and my heroines were rather straighter-toothed. I worked for a long time in bad jobs: hospitality, typing, and indulging an embarrassing wish to be an alternative rock goddess. Then I decided I didn't know enough and went to university, so far picking up an English degree with first class honours, a university medal, and an MA in creative writing. Right now, I'm a doctoral candidate in English at University of Queensland, writing a thesis about myths of creativity in British Romanticism.

All along, I've never stopped writing. In 1997 my first novel The Infernal was published. It was picked up in the UK and Europe, and went on to win the 1997 Aurealis Awards for best horror novel, and best fantasy novel. Grimoire was next in 1999, then I changed publishers. HarperCollins published my third novel The Resurrectionists in October 2000, and it was reprinted in November 2000, and August 2001

(paperback size). HarperCollins also publishing my young adult novel Bloodlace in May 2001 (the first in a series about a teenage psychic detective); and my fourth novel Angel of Ruin in October 2001 (available as e-book in November 2003). Most of these novels will also be published in the UK and Europe as well. I love writing more than I can adequately express. It is the balm for my soul — I love to lose myself in a story, and I get so attached to the characters that it's not unusual for me to go to pieces emotionally while finishing a book. Everything I write is written with the utmost care and attention; I can honestly say that my heart is in my work.

I live in Brisbane where I own a little flat near the university for me and my two black cats, Polly and Petra. I love music, especially melancholy stuff like Jeff Buckley and Tori Amos, and 20th century composers like Tavener, Gorecki, Glass and Winston. My fave TV

shows are The Simpsons, The Practice, Friends and Neighbours (yes, Neighbours). My partner is a talented singer-songwriter-guitarist-pianist-violinist who provides live music while I write, and always pats my head when I'm melancholy.

My plans for the future are to keep writing lots, keep reading lots, maybe have some kind of offspring, do lots more travel, learn lots of languages, and eventually be a happy old lady living in a house with a view of the sea.

Kim Wilkins

Credits

Cover photo kindly supplied by

Darian Causby

Cover and internal design by

HarperCollins Design Studio, Australia

THE RESURRECTIONISTS. COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY KIM

WILKINS. All rights reserved under International and PanAmerican Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 PerfectBound™.

PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader March 2003 ISBN 0-73227797-3

Print edition first published in 2000 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

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