Dear Mr. Cornwell, last Saturday I finished ‘Sharpe’s Triumph’ and I must say that it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I absolutely loved it and I can’t wait to read the previous book as well as the next ones. My parents, relatives and friends thank you: they won’t have any trouble finding the perfect Christmas/birthday gift for me for at least three or four years. I was wondering, have you ever heard of fanfictions? In case you have not, I’ll explain what they are: as their name suggest, they’re stories written by the fans of a book/movie/videogame/comic/TV show/whatever using the characters and settings of said book/movie/etc. They are tolerated since no one is getting paid, but writes for fun, and obviously everybody knows that the fanfiction writer does not own anything except the plot and occasionally one or more original characters that cover various roles from co-protagonist to simple extra. Anyway, I was wondering what do you think of them, since some authors are openly against them. Sometimes, when I run into some horrible fiction where the characters are badly mistreated, I can almost see their point, but then I remember that there are also wonderful stories that are only waiting to be found and read. I wish to know your opinion and, if you had never heard of fanfiction before, I hope that now you won’t ask to your reader not to write them (some authors did). I’m sorry if I’ve made some mistakes here and there, but English is not my native tongue: in fact, I am Italian and I live in Turin. Best wishes Laura