The Girl in the Glass

  13. Do you think Sofia should be allowed to keep her delusions? Why or why not?

  14. What gave Meg the courage to call Lorenzo after she read her father’s letter? How do you think Meg convinced Lorenzo he was worth the risk of being loved?

  Author’s Note

  One of the lovely things about writing fiction is the freedom to manipulate reality, to create people who seem real but aren’t, endowing them with a past that doesn’t exist and giving them desires that resonate in us even if the people themselves are imaginary. There is much about The Girl in the Glass that is real, much that I concocted, and much that is as real as I can imagine it.

  Nora Orsini was indeed the granddaughter of the great Cosimo I and the daughter of the murdered Isabella de’ Medici Orsini. But there is very little written about Nora in any historical records. While we can’t know for certain what her childhood was like after her mother was killed and her father disengaged himself from her, it is possible to imagine it. The narrative in The Girl in the Glass is how I imagined it.

  Nora did indeed marry Alessandro Sforza, and it was a marriage arranged by her uncle Ferdinando Medici. There is no evidence that she was an artist, that she left behind any paintings, that she had a nurse who was kind to her, that she left Florence believing she could overcome heartache by drawing from wells of inner strength. But there is likewise no evidence to the contrary, which of course allowed me to wonder and speculate and suppose. I attempted to craft as believable and accurate a tale as possible. Any inaccuracies were for the sake of story.

  If you get to Florence someday, please do find a trattoria that serves porcini mushrooms. They really are as soft and sweet as marshmallows.

  If you would like to know more about the Medici family, or Florence, or Isabella de’ Medici, I recommend these books: The House of Medici—Its Rise and Fall by Christopher Hibbert (William Morrow Paperbacks, 1999), The Stones of Florence by Mary McCarthy (Mariner Books, 2002), Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King (Penguin, 2001), and Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline P. Murphy (Oxford University Press, 2009).

  Acknowledgments

  A novel is never the work of just one person. I am tremendously grateful to my editorial team at WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, including Shannon Marchese, Lissa Halls Johnson, and Laura K. Wright, for opening my eyes to deeper and grander possibilities with these characters. Their insights sent me back to the drawing board more than once, but I am so glad they did. I am also grateful to my agent, Chip MacGregor, for steady encouragement, especially when the task at hand seemed far bigger than my ability to meet it.

  Special thanks to Molly Kim, Emily Cates, Jody Cates, Katie Kuhl, and Jennifer Lyn King for sharing their memories, impressions, and photographs of Florence, and for loving this beautiful city like I do.

  My Zip It! Book Club gals, and special friends Kimlee Harper, Pam Ingold, and Kathy Sanders prayed me through the tough days of the writing process. Their cheers from the sidelines kept me going. I am beyond grateful.

  Hearty thanks are extended to my mother, Judy Horning, for her proofreading prowess, and to my husband, Bob, for letting me go back to Florence—in my mind—every day for nearly a year without him. Bob, Sei tutto per me.

  Lastly, I am grateful to God for bestowing on humankind the desire and the vision to imagine jaw-dropping beauty and then the talent to bravely create it.

  About the Author

  Susan Meissner has been a devotee of the art of story since her earliest pencil-and-paper days. She is the award-winning author of The Shape of Mercy, Lady in Waiting, and many other novels. She is also a speaker and writing-workshop leader with a background in community journalism. When she’s not writing, Susan directs the Small Groups and Connection Ministries program at The Church at Rancho Bernardo in San Diego. She and her pastor husband are the parents of four young adults. Visit her website at www.susanmeissner.com.