The Midnight Train (The Midnight World, #2)(78)

And, in terms of The Midnight Train, it’s not only been quite a journey but one which I haven’t travelled alone.

I have a lot of people to thank.

Firstly, there are all the people who read my other Midnight book, The Midnight Library. The response to that story led me to thinking of its concept and themes more than ever before. So thanks to those readers for keeping it alive, because without that story this novel wouldn’t exist.

Obviously this isn’t a sequel to The Midnight Library, in any traditional sense. But conceptually, it follows on. The Midnight Library was a library between life and death. This is a train through life after death. And now I feel both novels are having a heated debate with each other about how best to live. Either way, its existence is a result of people reading the first one.

So thank you if that was you.

And of course, a big thank you to my long-time editor and friend Francis Bickmore, and Vicki Rutherford and Camilla Luxmoore in the editorial team at Canongate. Francis would be able to tell you that this novel, fittingly enough, has gone on the longest journey from first draft to here. In fact, the only thing I think that remains is that some of it is set in Venice. I must also express thanks to the international editors who read early drafts and all had useful feedback. Namely Patrick Nolan at Penguin/Viking in the US, Doris Janhsen at Droemer Knaur in Germany, and both Iris Tupholme and Janice Zawerbny at HarperCollins in Canada.

I have been published by Canongate Books for sixteen years now and I am grateful for the freedom they give. Infinite thanks to Jenny Fry for all her great work on the book and knowing precisely how to place it out there in bookland. Thanks of course to Jamie Byng who has championed this book worldwide from the start. Gratitude also to the formidable rights team of Laura Otal, Jessica Neale and Phyllis Armstrong.

Thanks also to Alice Shortland and Emily Cox in campaigns and Emma Finnigan and Christian Lewis for all their publicity work.

And to my brilliant powerhouse (and steam train) agent Clare Conville, as well as Lizzie Milne and everyone at C&W. Plus the great Nick Marston and Camilla Young at Curtis Brown.

And thank you if you were one of the 30,000 people on Instagram who helped choose the UK cover design. I think you chose well. And thank you obviously to Nathalie Lees who illustrated it in the first place, and to Rafi Romaya for her design skills, and Kate Oliver for her work on production.

This is a book that is, quite literally, about a bookseller. So it is inevitable I should want to thank booksellers. I have been lucky to meet so many great ones over the years, and I owe my career to those who championed me early on.

I must also thank my wife and first reader and best friend Andrea Semple for doing so much. The list would be as long as a book. And to my brilliant children Lucas and Pearl, who are a daily inspiration.

Thanks to the wonderfully creative city of Sheffield. I had a lot of its music in my mind as I wrote this. For instance, eagle-eyed readers may notice that the chapter titles Something Changed and Coles Corner are the names of songs by Pulp and Richard Hawley respectively. Brilliant songs, in case you have never heard them.

Thanks to my parents, who have often told me about the Sheffield of their student years, which helped a lot here for obvious reasons.

Thanks to Venice, for being Venice.

Thanks to all the books I pay tribute to in this novel. This is, even more than The Midnight Library, a book about reading. About the importance of reading stories throughout life, of being transported into other lives and places and worlds.

And thanks to my dogs, Bruce and Betsy, for getting me outside on days when I was deep in writing.

Thank you all.