I have no plans for a future Jemima Shore mystery, but would write one tomorrow if a good idea came to me.

I hate the only one of my book jackets when I was made up professionally, my hair made into a smooth bell.

The concentration in my book on Marie Antoinette's childhood and on her family influences. It is surprising how some books actually start with her arrival in France!

I love hearing details of writers' craft, as cannibals eat the brains of clever men to get cleverer.

My advantage as a woman and a human being has been in having a mother who believed strongly in women's education. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.

Mary Queen of Scots was my first love, and that is always something special.

My mother, who was quite sharp when I was young, became utterly mild.