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Truesilver wasn’t originally planned. But I received so many requests to hear more about Zach Trewick and his adventures, I wanted to give the fans what they asked for. So in a way this book is every bit as much the creation of my readers as it is mine.

There was always the possibility of dealing with the woken-up wolves, of course, and that’s the path I chose to take in this book. I did my usual thing and ran down whatever rabbit holes appealed to me at the time, since I’ve always thought writing should be at least as much fun as reading.

Most of the things in the book are real-life people and places. Juan de Velasco really existed, his ship was really the San Andrés, and he really sank in a storm in 1600. The Skullcrusher Mountains are real, and so were Madryn of Gwent and Tristan of Tintagel, whose sword was really named Mercy and which has really belonged to all the Kings of England since Edward the Confessor. Iridium is a real metal, with the same properties described in the book, and along with platinum it has occasionally been called truesilver. They do indeed make spark plugs and fountain pens from it. Cape Mendocino is similar to what I described, including the exact location and depth of the very underwater canyon Zach and the others visited, which is called (uninterestingly) Mendocino Canyon.

Doing research on obscure topics like octopus wrestling or the history of sword fighting is actually one of the biggest pleasures of coming up with these adventures. I have a legitimate reason to satisfy my curiosity about everything under the sun, and what’s not to love about that?

This book contains characters which appear in other books not directly related to The Cursebreaker Series. I’ve always liked big, intricately connected worlds in which I can learn more about any character I like just by finding another book. It’s a closer reflection of the real world, and it adds so much more depth and richness to all the stories.

Cody McGrath’s tale is told later in Many Waters, a book which is closely related to this series even though it’s not really part of it. But since Zach found the story of Cody’s fight with Layla Garza so interesting (even though he never asked about it), I thought other readers might be curious, too. No doubt in the future I’ll continue to explore other connections like this.

But in the meantime, I hope my readers enjoy this fourth book of Zach’s adventures as much as they have his past ones. The Cursebreaker Series will end with one more book, Lion's Heart, to be released soon.

In the future, as Zach himself says, he’ll move on to greater things; to fighting whatever kinds of evils there may be in the world, so you never really know what might pop up in the future. This time it was evil sorcerers, tomorrow it could be anything. I think that’s a broad enough scope to provide Zach with adventure and purpose for the rest of his life