Before beginning to write in 2002, Gerard Helferich was an editor and publisher for 25 years at several houses in New York, including Doubleday, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley. Helferich's other works include Stone of Kings: In Search of the Lost Jade of the Maya, as well as the highly praised Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World and the award-winning High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta.