Jane Austen's beloved novel Emma concludes with the marriage of Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley. As the newlyweds begin married life together at Highbury in Surrey, England, they are exuberant over the happy turn of their lives and hopeful for the future. Writes Miss Austen, "The wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union."For more than two centuries, readers have wondered what lay ahead for the Knightleys and their friends, the Churchills, the Westons, and the Martins. Will "perfect happiness" prevail for all? Can love survive and thrive amidst life's harsh vicissitudes and the failings and deficiencies of the human spirit?Where Jane Austen's Emma leaves off, Emma and George: The Knightleys of Highbury begins. Robert T. McMaster grew up in Southbridge, Massachusetts. He completed his undergraduate education at Clark University, then earned graduate degrees from Boston College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts. Early in his career he taught middle school science, then worked as an administrator for several environmental education organizations. After completing his graduate studies, he taught biology at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts, for twenty years.The nineteen-teens have long interested Robert McMaster. He found inspiration in his parents' reminiscences of growing up in that era, particularly his father's stories of riding the streetcars that plied city streets and country roads in those days. Those stories led to his first novel, Trolley Days, published in 2012, then The Dyeing Room (2013), Noah's Raven (2017), and Darkest Before Dawn (2022). The series follows the lives of four young people growing up in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in the tumultuous World War I era (www.TrolleyDays.net).Robert McMaster's fascination with Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), renowned American geologist and paleontologist, began when he visited the Pratt Museum of Natural History at Amherst College over half a century ago. In 2014, while doing research for one of his novels, he discovered to his great surprise that there had never been a biography written of Hitchcock. In 2021 he published All the Light Here Comes from Above: The Life and Legacy of Edward Hitchcock. More than a century-and-a-half after his death, the story of one of nineteenth-century America's most influential scientists at last had been told (www.EdwardHitchcock.com).The author's ancestral ties to Ireland led him to undertake another project, the County Wicklow Mystery Series including Rose of Glenkerry and Fugitive from Injustice, stories of mystery and romance set against the stunning backdrop of Ireland's County Wicklow (www.WicklowMysteries.com).
