Author Notes
Dedication
To my imaginary friend ZeroGain, who has become my real friend Tim. This book would not have come into being without your steady support at the other end of the instant message window.
Acknowledgements
A Gift of Time went through innumerable revisions over a period of eighteen months. Along the way, I posted multiple drafts of early chapters on Critique Circle, Fictionpress, and Project Team Beta. I’d like to thank everyone who provided feedback in those forums, as well as the people who maintain those online communities. AllyrienDM, Aehvtine, World of Ink, and the anonymous reviewer who thanked me for making my characters “mature, reasonable people with good sense,” get my special appreciation for continuing to read, despite the ever-changing first chapters.
I am also extremely grateful to this book’s team of beta readers: Carol Bird, Barbara Gavin, Melony Grace, Lynda Haviland, Kris Hiehle, Mike Kent, Sarah Kessler, Judy Long, Amy Mendoza, Christina Pearson, Tim Nutting, and Teresa Young. Without your support, this book would have been living on a USB drive in my desk drawer indefinitely.
To My Readers
I hope you enjoyed visiting Tassamara. If you’d like to know when I’m releasing a new book or story, please sign up for my mailing list. I promise I’ll never use your email address for anything evil. Or even anything chaotic neutral.
Speaking of book updates: if you’re interested in reading more of my stories (maybe even delivered a bit faster next time), please help by spreading the word about them however you can. Write reviews, tell your friends, mention them to your online connections—you get the idea, I'm sure. My book sales currently buy me cups of coffee, but enough of them could also buy me more time to write, and that would be kind of nice, I think. (I hope you agree!)
To get in touch with me, email me at sarah@sarahwynde.com. You can also find me on Facebook at Sarah Wynde or on Twitter as @Wyndes.
Or you can find me on one of my blogs. Wynded Words is my home site, where I write about anything that strikes my fancy. The Write Push is a group writing blog where I and a couple of other authors post about our progress and our thoughts on what we’re learning, and Say Yum is a cooking blog where a friend and I keep track of the meals we make for one another. Finally, on tumblr, I'm at http://wyndes.tumblr.com/. I’m madly in love with tumblr, but my tumblr feed is even more random than my blog. My own blog posts show up there, but I also reblog stuff I find fun or interesting, i.e. Doctor Who gifs, viral videos, and the occasional cultural analysis. If any of that sounds fun, you're welcome to stop by.
Best wishes,
Sarah
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Author Notes
Table of Contents