Afterword
HELLO, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Yuki Rinrin.
Thank you for picking up this book. Since this is the afterword, I suppose I’ll talk about what I modeled the setting of this book on.
Ten years ago, now, I traveled to London. There are so many great spots in London, from Buckingham Palace to the British Museum, but the thing I was most looking forward to was the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. I was so excited that I was going to go there.
The morning of my visit, I hopped on the Underground to the station nearest to the museum. I walked down London’s streets under a sunny spring sky for about five minutes and arrived at the museum. Filled with excitement, I entered the museum as the first visitor of the day.
Inside were so many things that surprised and moved me, but the thing that left the biggest impression on me was the recreation of the period. It was a perfect recreation of the feel of 18th century Victorian England, which is the period in which Sherlock Holmes was set. It felt like I’d dropped by the home of someone I knew who lived at that time.
One item in particular that I remember leaving a mark on me was a blue gemstone related to one of the stories. That’s why, when I was thinking of writing a story about a girl who crafts magic jewelry, the first thing that popped into my head was that room and the blue gem. I thought it would be really interesting if I wrote a story about a protagonist living in a world like that.
After that, I thought back to the museum and London’s streets and used that as a reference while I wrote. In the process, I reread the entirety of the Sherlock Holmes collection, got sucked into an anime also called Sherlock Holmes, and generally just stopped several times along my journey of writing this. Still, I got there eventually and turned it into this book.
Okay, so, now that Olivia got her own shop in volume one, she’s going to find herself facing a trial in volume two: Her former fiancé, Henry, and her adoptive sister, Catherine, are getting married and, for some reason, Viscount Perigord sent Olivia an invitation to their wedding.
What is she going to do with the invitation? What is Elliot going to do when he sees her in a tough spot? What in the world are Catherine and the Viscount even thinking?
At the time I’m writing this afterword, I’m also busy writing volume two. I hope to get it finished in the near future and that you’ll check it out when I do.
And to wrap up, I’d like to use this opportunity to say thank you to Suzaku for the incredible illustrations and thank you to everyone else involved in making this book possible.
See you in volume two.
Rinrin Yuki
Fall 2023