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

King Charles II liked women's company and well as making love to them.

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.

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

If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.

Ninety-seven is my lucky number.

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