This is the first weird thing that happened to me while I was writing Book 6, Gappy and the Witch's Curse. It was April of this year (2011), and I'd recently returned from Salem, Massachusetts where I'd been doing research for the book. I was writing the last few chapters and filling in blanks, and was totally immersed in the history of the Salem witch trials when, on a Saturday afternoon, I visited a second-hand book store to look for an old book on chemistry or electrical engineering for a science professor friend of mine whose birthday was coming up. The shop owner showed me a bookcase near the back wall where old, cloth-bound chemistry textbooks were shelved. As I browsed the shelves, reading the titles of the books, I suddenly caught sight of a hardcover novel whose modern white jacket stood out in contrast to the muted reds and browns of the old textbooks, some of which dated back to the 1940's. As I looked up at the book to read the title printed on its spine, a cold shiver crept down my own spine. The title of the white book was In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, by Mary Beth Norton, published in 2002. Amid the shelves of mouldy old texbooks, all devoted to organic and inorganic chemistry and the odd biology text, In the Devil's Snare had obviously been misfiled at some point, but what a huge coincidence, and what a spooky one, too! Needless to say, I bought the book, and it proved very useful as a reference guide for checking facts and figures and adding the finishing touches to Gappy and the Witch's Curse.
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