Daydreams can come true

Once upon a time, in around the middle of 2003, a girl called Kate Allan was daydreaming about writing an adventure story about a Napoleonic Joan of Arc type female soldier. Later, that autumn she suggested the idea as a novel to her critique partner Michelle Styles. A kind of 'let's do it jointly and have a laugh and not take it too seriously because knowing UK publishing no one will publish the thing' idea.

By January 2004, the novel was drafted, and Kate and Michelle started querying publishers, and after an initial flurry of rejections, tried some agents. After some feedback from an agent, the story was revised again. Nails got bitten when a publisher requested the full manuscript, but then rejected it. Ditto two agents. Finally, at the beginning of September, Robert Hale offered a publishing contract.

And now, in May 2005, it's here in hardcover! Official publication date is 31st May 2005.