A Navy Wife’s Look At Memorial Day

Fire up the grill; it’s Memorial Day. Baseball games, beautiful weather, rippling flags, hot barbecue, and a three-day weekend; all good things. But few of us bother to think much anymore about why we get this day off. Last year on this day, I posted my own...

Coming Soon In 2011 . . .

I used to think there was nothing better than finding a terrific new book that I’ve never read before. Wrong. Even better than that is finding a terrific new book that I’ve never read before, then discovering that it is the first of a series and two more...

“Rome” vs. “I, Claudius”

For many of us ancient history buffs, the obsession started with “I, Claudius.” This BBC miniseries following the scandalous, sinful, and always scintillating adventures of Rome’s earliest Emperors was the “Spartacus” of its day; the...

The Greatest Love Story Never Told

It’s a real life fairy-tale, a love story to rival all the greats: Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet. It sounds like something conjured up by the Brothers Grimm, but it’s true–genuine historical fact. Once upon a time, a...
STET, Goddamnit!*

STET, Goddamnit!*

So I have been up to my neck, these past two weeks, in reviewing the copy-edits for Daughters of Rome. Copy-editing belongs somewhere around the fourth level of hell: not as bad as doing a headstand in a Portapotty, worse than having thumb-tacks pressed under your...

Let’s Hear It For The Bad Guy!

Let’s face it: everybody loves a good villain. No great book or movie is complete without one: without Lord Voldemort and the ever-rising body count of his victims, the Harry Potter books are just a cute kid series about a magical boarding school. Sometimes we...

Mistress of Rome: The Movie

Several readers have written to ask me the following question: Will my historical novel Mistress of Rome ever be made into a movie? I have to say, probably not. Historical movies are invariably big budget: it costs a lot of money to fund the necessary CGI, the...

Happy Father’s Day

I’m a daddy’s girl; always have been. I had one of those dads who read aloud to me, taught me to appreciate Miles Davis, and jogged alongside my bike holding it up as I first wobbled down the street. By the time I was in middle school we shared a mutual...

Sex With Kings

So I have to wonder: why all the fascination lately with royal mistresses? Well, maybe I don’t wonder that much. From a historical fiction novelist’s standpoint, I can see why fellow HF writers like royal mistresses as characters for novels: they’re...