Dear Mr. Cornwell, Let me begin (as is always desirable) on a positive note by thanking you, most sincerely, for the many hours of pleasure and entertainment I have taken from your Sharpe novels. They are delightful. Unfortunately, I have just finished Sharpes Revenge and am compelled, yes compelled to say that I am seriously disappointed to read on your very own website that you &never intended it to happen! that you &introduced Lucille for Fredrickson&. Aunt Susan is distressed, indeed she is mystified that you should profess to be surprised by the actions of Lucille and Sharpe. Were you asleep when you wrote Madame Castineau? She is strong. She is sensible. She has a sense of humor. And yet she is still charmingly in need of rescue. In short, she is and probably always was, in spite of your protestations, written for Sharpe, who like Dorothy just wants to go home. To cut and paste her onto Sweet William was pure folly. Good God, Man! No wonder your plot went astray. Its no more than you deserve. To saddle William Fredickson with Lucille Castineau (and vice-versa) would be worse than cruel. We can only be grateful that she was wiser than you (and that silly ass Jane Gibbons) and did not marry the first man who came along with an offer to mend the roof. And poor Mr. Fredrickson! What, pray, has the gentleman done to you that you should undertake to torture him so? That you, who are ordinarily so astute, should attempt to bury him alive in the country with such and unsuitable woman. Shame on you. He wants to go to Rome. He is as well educated as any man in Wellingtons army, which one can only presume means Oxford or its equivalent (is there an equivalent?), and has a passion for ancient architecture. Yet now I learn that having pried him out of his smug misogynistic bachelorhood and robbed him of his friends you have exiled him to Canada! Please understand, Aunt Susan lives in the Great Pacific Northwest, as did no less than 5 generations of her family before her. No one is more enthusiastic about big trees and glaciers than she. But Heavens! The nearest ancient architecture is in the Yucatan. Harper, bless his heart, is entirely correct. It is not enough to put a woman in Fredricksons bed. You must provide a woman he can like. Madame Castineau, for all of her admirable qualities, is not a woman that William Fredrickson could make a friend of, and not having friendship to sustain them once the flesh has been enjoyed and they are left with nothing but a dry carcass, he would undoubtedly fall back on contempt. Certainly this would eventually destroy even the calmest of souls. Better to put bullets through both their hearts. Dear Sharpe has done them both a favor. Sir, please let me encourage you, should you ever attempt to storm this particular breach again, to re-visit your Shakespeare first. Do not attempt to harness Sweet William to Olivia. She will not do! Hitch him to Kate, or better yet, lock him in the barn with Beatrix. I will close by saying, that though, like many others, I grieve that Sweet William has rejected the friendship of Dick Sharpe and is thereby removed from our company, I am pleased that you did not chicken out as they say, and persist in a sad attempt to force a princess on The Poor Old Toad. Bless you. Aunt Susan approves, and has put Revenge near, although not at, the top of her Sharpe list, somewhere close behind Tiger, Triumph and Enemy. (She sincerely believes that General Nairns first interview with Sharpe in Enemy is a masterpiece.) Thank you again for all of the fun, Susan M. Lundstedt
P.S. It is too bad that Sweet William does seem to have sprung fully-formed from the head of Zeus. That is, that he arrived in our midst with all of his scars already in place and we did not have the pleasure of watching him acquire them one by one. I, for one, really do think we should actually witness him making one last sacrifice to the gods of war before he is consigned to happiness. Perhaps a, oh dear, no, mustnt make suggestions& P.P.S. If any of the above, that was written, I assure you, in a spirit of fun, constitutes some sort of suggestion that might cause you legal angst, please forgive me. I realize that it is very likely impractical, but should it concern you, please feel free to send me any kind of release that you think will be helpful, and I will read it, sign it, have it notarized and return it to you in partial payment for value already received.