<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cemetery-of-secrets-pbb-300.jpg"><img class="alignright" style="margin-left:8px;" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cemetery-of-secrets-pbb-300-tm.jpg" alt="Cemetery of Secrets PBB 300.JPG" width="102" height="154" /></a>Books come about in funny ways. One of my most popular, and one some people believe is among my best, came about through the oddest route of all: what I thought might be the end of my brief career as a novelist.

This story begins in 1999 when I was four books through a contract with my previous publisher, with one title to deliver. Big changes were happening with them -- new bosses, new staff, new strategies. Three things that send a shiver through any midlist author who happens to have spent a little time with the house now about to be reinvented and hasn't exactly set the world on fire.

<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/lucifer.jpg"><img class="alignright" style="margin-left:8px;" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/lucifer-tm.jpg" alt="Lucifer.jpg" width="102" height="151" /></a>Though no one said as much I was pretty convinced I was going to be dropped once I delivered that last book. Nevertheless, being, I hope, a responsible author I made serious attempts to get an opinion about what kind of book they were expecting for this new one. I wasn't a series writer at the time. Truthfully I didn't know what kind of writer I was. Nor was anyone going to enlighten me. I had to find that out for myself. No complaints there. That's how things are.

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What this meant was that I found myself writing something that had no expectations from anyone. No preconceived ideas what kind of book it might be. No genre. No style demands. Nothing.

I mulled over this for a while and decided to go for broke, writing something that was rather more upmarket and 'literary' than anything I'd tried before. I was still a journalist with the <em>Sunday Times</em> at the time and I went on a short assignment -- to cover the launch of Hewlett Packard servers if I recall correctly -- in Venice, in the Hotel des Bains, Thomas Mann's place, to be precise. It was as interesting as server launch events can be but Venice started to fascinate me.

I went back another time and bumped into a musician who was clearly obsessed with his work. Obsession is always a good starting point for any story. Finally, the idea of a book set around a missing instrument and a piece of music began to emerge. I started writing the contemporary element and soon realised that I needed to understand the historic back story -- in the early 18th century, the time of Vivaldi too -- too. So, purely for research purposes in the beginning, I began to write that historic tale, spending a small fortune on travel and obscure academic tomes about printing and music in the Venice of the 18th century.

The result was <em>Lucifer's Shadow.</em> My then publisher realised this was quite a special book. It got fabulous reviews and a good reception from readers. But by that stage they were, I suspect, mentally pushing me out of the building. So it didn't sell much for the simple reason it never found its way into many book stores.

When the first Nic Costa novel <em>A Season for the Dead</em> sold in the US I pushed a copy of <em>Lucifer</em> under the nose of my editor there. She loved it and brought it out as a successful standalone title there, where it won a lot of plaudits, including a 'one of the best of the year' award from <em><a href="http://www.deadlypleasures.com/dp2004.html" target="_blank">Deadly Pleasures</a></em>. Now, with my current publisher Macmillan, it's enjoying a very healthy second life in the UK as <em>The Cemetery of Secrets</em>, with some good coverage in book stores finally.

This is a very unusual and adventurous book, moving from the early 18th century to the present day in two linked stories which mirror very similar -- or the same? -- characters facing the same dilemmas and temptations and discovering new ways to approach them. I would <em>never</em> have written this book if an editor had said to me, 'You're a crime-thriller-mystery author. Go away and write something that matches the genre you're in.'

The book came about because no one had any expectations of it. I was effectively writing outside of contract, a lone wolf hunting for something that would help define me as a writer, unconstricted by any boundaries whatsoever.

It did define me too. This was my first Italian book and when I was working on the revise I spent a week in Rome editing it. I wanted to be in a location that was Italian but not the actual scene for the book. Rome seemed to make sense. When I wasn't editing that manuscript I was wandering the city, slowly becoming engrossed in its character, making mental notes of aspects that interested me.

As I expected I was dumped by my old publisher after <em>Lucifer's Shadow</em> came out. They were offered first sight of <em>A Season for the Dead</em> and turned it down. Happily, Macmillan, and later many other publishers, felt differently.

Today I write in the knowledge that there are expectations of my work, and that some people will feel disappointed if I fail to meet them. In a way that's good I guess. But those of you taking your first few steps towards this business should remember: the freedom you have now may not last, and the direction you take will probably begin to define your future somewhat.

The more one writes popular fiction, the more the expectations -- of readers and publishers -- begin to grow. That's both good <em>and</em> bad. And probably unavoidable.