Interview with Tasha Alexander, Author of IN THE SHADOW OF VESUVIUS

It was a joy to talk about so many things with New York Times bestselling author, Tasha Alexander! I think we covered just about everything... Education, history, research, oh—and writing. I hope you all enjoy this podcast, which was interrupted a couple of times thanks to the vagaries of the Internet, but we managed.

Transcript

Susanne 0:28

I'm here today with Tasha Alexander, the New York times bestselling author of historical mysteries. I've just finished reading her. In the shadow of the SU Vesuvius, which I absolutely loved. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about a bunch of other stuff. So first of all, we were chatting before you were saying, as I think it's probably true for many authors that the lockdowns and everything, the restrictions haven't affected you all that much.

Tasha 0:57

Absolutely. I think that most people who are drawn to writing, we might be. What did they call it? Extroverted introverts or something? Oh, I'm happy to stay home. I, I. I relish an excuse to stay home. And so this hasn't really affected my daily life in terms of where I would go or what I would do. It just means I don't have to come up with excuses for not doing things anymore.

Susanne 1:25

That's a good one, for sure. For sure. I'd love it if you'd talk a little bit about what got you started in writing this series. This was number 14. Was it.

1:36

That's

Tasha 1:36

right?

Susanne 1:37

Yeah. There's a series of historical mysteries. How crazy? Yeah,

Tasha 1:42

it is. I, from the time I was a little girl, I loved reading and actually it is the first memory. I have vivid memory that I have. I was sitting with my mom in our living room and she was reading out loud to me. She was reading little house in the big woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And all of a sudden I realized that I was the head of her on the page. And it was just this regulatory moment because I learned then that you didn't need a grownup to read. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that before, but I didn't. And I just thought, Oh my goodness, you can just, you mean, you can just read whenever you want and pick up whatever book you want. And that kind of set me on my path of just reading everything I could get my hands on. And I think that there's a way in which writing is a very natural extension of reading. what other way do you have to have a book that ends exactly the way you want it to right. It's a very different process, obviously, but, there's a way in which it's like reading. so I always, as I, I think like most of us do, most of us writers do when we're kids, you know, I I wrote lots of little short stories, about how I too, like Laura and glows was going to be a pioneer and very derivative work. Shall we say that? I, I would bind in. Pieces of cardboard that I tied together with yarn. And thankfully I think none of them exist anymore, but, but as I got older and you know, you'd you'd go to college and then you graduate and there are things like rent and health insurance, and inconvenient costs of living, and being a writer didn't really seem like a viable way to pay those bills. So I, I worked a bunch of. What I like to describe as soul crushing jobs. but I really, you know, it's funny because part of, I think, what, what drove, what drove me, but then I started to think about is that I started to recognize, I think when you have a job, you're not really loving. I started to realize that in our society, we really define ourselves by what we do. No, you go to a party, you meet someone and they want to know what you do. like your job is the thing about you. That's interesting. I mean, for me, my job was the least interesting thing about me. And so I got into the habit of, I'd always say, Oh, I'm working whatever job, but I want to be a writer. And I was always saying, I want to be writer. And years I went by doing this. and then I had a baby and when my son was three. I was reading Gadi night by Dorothy L Sayers, who is a wonderful novelist, a British, she writes, she wrote mysteries, but she was a Dante scholar in Oxford. So her stories are just so intelligent and informed and wonderful. And in GoDaddy night, and I swear, this does eventually tie back into what I was saying about the Hey

Susanne 4:35

just rambling is really interesting. So just keep going. Okay.

Tasha 4:39

in this book, Harriet vane, who is in love with Sayers, this protagonist Lord Peter Wimsey, Peter has proposed and Harriet is having a conversation with one of her friends at Oxford saying, and this is the twenties in Britain. And Harry is saying, another thing is if I marry him, Am I still going to be able to do what I want to do. I mean, you know, this, this, the twenties women barely have the right to vote, marrying a member of the aristocracy. It might very well, well change what she can do with her life because women's roles were so different than they are now. And her friend says to her, no, no, no. You don't need to worry about that because once you know what it is, you actually want to do, you will find a way to do it. No matter what obstacle is thrown on your path, you will steam roll over it. I like just had such an epiphany moment as I read that. I just thought, She's right. And that was something my dad always used to say too. He'd say, you know, you look at people in the end, they really do what they want to, because it's really easy to have excuses, not to do things, but if you really want something, you're going to do it. And in that moment, I just said, I always say, I want to be a writer. I don't write anything. So I either have to stop saying that or I need to start writing. And so that next morning, I did just that I sat down and of course my son was three. And as anyone who has children knows the moment that you find out some figure out something you want to do that is when they stopped napping and never nap again for the rest of their lives. so I would, you know, I got him, he was playing Legos or something, and I sat down and started working on what became my first book and only to see if, and. I think because, I had this little boy and I don't know, I guess I didn't feel pressure like times in the past when I had, cause it wasn't like I had never written anything, but I had toyed with the idea and were trying to figure out what should I write? And I always had this idea that, I should be writing something. Important or something popular or something. And I, wasn't just thinking about the thing that matters about what you want to write and it's what you want to read. And so at this point I was a little older and I was a little wiser and I just said, okay, I am writing a book that I want to read because probably no one is going to publish this. And my mother is obligated to like it.

Susanne 7:10

So

Tasha 7:12

if it does nothing else, it will entertain me. And so I literally sat down and I made a list of things that I think are interesting. And I really love classical antiquities. I've always been fascinated with the idea of forgery. I feel like it's so fascinating, you know, you can. Look at two objects and one is a practicality is original. And we understand just in some primal way, how intrinsically valuable that is that, touched this marble, but next to it can be. Aye. aye. DentiCal piece that is, you can measure it. It's the same kind of marble. It looks exactly the same. You would have to be an art historian who specializes in this sort of thing to see that it's not that it is fake, that it's not the original and that's going to cost$300 in the gift shop. If it's big or,$50 in the gift shop. But I find it just so fascinating that even though they look identical, they're completely different. And so I was like, okay, so that has to go in the book somewhere. And, I've always loved the past. I've long felt that I was born in the wrong century. I really, I pick any others, especially in 2020, I pick any century other than, and, but the late Victorian era. Is fascinating because you've got all of the social and political change. That's starting and building. And I think it's interesting to explore what makes that happen. the Victorian era in particular, you've got all these amazing iconic class who seem to have sprung from the womb ready to fight for social change. But until. You get a broader swath of the population saying, yeah, actually we need to do this. You don't get that change on a wholesale level. And so I wanted to think about what makes people, because obviously if you're. The child working in the match factory. You probably probe children not working in match factories, but what if you're an aristocrat who has everything that you could possibly want? Your life is not your life is so not impacted by these things that you don't even really know. I mean, a lot of women in the upper classes in Britain, they didn't even know what it was like. For people of other classes, the only people who weren't of their class, who they interacted with were their servants. So what makes those people start to sit up, take notice and say, yeah, this isn't okay. And let's what I saw. I wanted my character to start off as one of those society girls. And then broadly speaking beginning with having an intellectual awakening. Which always helps you see a broader world, get her out into the world and start seeing things and becoming a person who would eventually care about those things. so that was really. My starting point, which is a very long answer to your question.

Susanne 10:14

No, it was a wonderful answer and I, yeah, I can totally empathize with finding those turning points in history that are really fascinating. And I think, In my academic work. that's exactly where I was in terms of music history, but, and also for me, it's also finding the turning points in a character's life, which is why I tend to make my heroines on the cusp of adulthood. because there's that's, but, so yeah, absolutely. that was awesome. And you talk with great authority about Brexit LEAs and things like that. And did you study, the ancient history in college or was it just,

Tasha 10:51

I did English and in the end medieval studies in college, my parents are both academics, My entire life, we've, my whole childhood was going to museums and learning about things. And I mean, one of the best gifts that my parents gave me was to show me how fun it is to learn things. And if I was interested in something, they would get me all the books about it. we'd go to the library and come on with giant stacks of books and read. And When I was in college, I did what I had to do for the major, but I was constantly taking courses in ancient history or things that, I, I I guess there's a way in which I was like a 19th century dilatory. Really? I was, dipping into things that I no,

Susanne 11:32

no. You are a Renaissance woman. Renaissance woman was what you are. Yes.

Tasha 11:38

I like that. but like my interest in the ancient world started, when I was quite young because my father, w it was about a 20 minute drive to school every day. And he, every morning would tell my brother had me a Greek myth on the way on the drive to school. And it was just great. Cause, you know, so that just, I just thought that was so fascinated. And I'm where is the Dina now? I was just so drawn into that world of mythology and that really set me on a lifelong path of loving the ancient world. But then when I was in college, the reason I ended up specializing in the medieval period was that I had phenomenal professors. And I think there's something just so exciting when you get, I didn't even know I was interested in the middle ages and then I go to this lecture and I'm thinking. Why did no one tell me how fantastic it is. It is. And so I followed that instead of saying, I'm going to study. My parents were very big on college, not being vocational training. they, their view was, this is your, this is the only time in your life. You get to sit around, read, Go to classes and you don't have to, it doesn't have to be with a dollar sign attached at the end. you'll hear my dad used to say, if you are educated, well educated, that means you're going to be able to think for yourself and be articulate and you can. Put those skills into use in pretty much any field. So yeah, it was very good advice.

Susanne 13:04

Yeah. I always say, had said, and I've argued with people about this. I'm a huge believer in liberal arts education. And I hated when colleges suddenly went, everybody had to major in economics and, or engineering or something like that because that kind of broad education teaches you problem solving. And now it teaches you having to figure something out. And for me it was absolutely the best education for everything that I ended up doing. But partly, I, cause I did end up in the music history realm and I was a music major, but you know, I did lots of things in between that had nothing to do with it. But because I had a broad education and could think things through and problem solve and do this lateral thinking thing.

Tasha 13:53

Absolutely. And that's the thing. I think that's lost so much now with people getting away from the humanities, you need to be a critical thinker. You need to know how to analyze the world around you, and that comes into any job you want to do. And, this idea that we all have to be plugged into the same thing and get the same kind of degree or else we're not going to be revenue generating. I just don't think that's, you know, if you look back at somebody like Einstein, right? Okay. He's a S he was a scientist, but he was so cultured and so broadly educated people who are at the top of their field. I think almost always. Or have curious minds and don't limit themselves to only studying their narrow thing.

Susanne 14:38

Yeah. I forget where I read this statistic. I'm looking up statistics for a project that, some over half of the applicants to medical school who were accepted were like music majors.

Tasha 14:53

Yeah. I can believe that, but, and there's that really fascinating connection between music and math.

Susanne 15:02

Yeah, it didn't work for me. Interesting. It didn't work for me

Tasha 15:06

either. A boy. The happiest day of my life was when I was done with math, but hold up, there are ways that the brain works that we don't even understand and learning more, I think is always better. And I just, I don't know. I, when I'm actually. Right before I started writing less than the year before I started writing. I was living in new Haven, Connecticut, and, I decided to audit middle adoption at Yale because I thought, well, it was great for ancient link near Eastern languages. I'm going to go learn how to read hieroglyphs and know. It's just fun to do that kind of thing.

Susanne 15:42

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm one of those people who, if I could have afforded it, I would have just stayed in college, getting degree after degree,

Tasha 15:54

me too.

Susanne 15:56

even though it took me 11 years to eventually get my PhD, it's I was ready. I could have gone on to something else without a heart.

Tasha 16:05

Yeah. There are so many interesting disciplines and you think, Oh yeah, I'd love to spend, five or six years just thinking about this and then

Susanne 16:12

yeah. Linguistics.

Tasha 16:13

I would done linguistics.

Susanne 16:16

I would've done linguistics. Oh

Tasha 16:19

yeah. Yeah. I think I would've done. I would've done classics. I would have done. I would've done a lot of history.

Susanne 16:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Tasha 16:30

Fascinated with languages.

Susanne 16:32

Yeah. You know, I never took an English course in college, not a single line. Oh, actually, no, I tell a lie. I did one about, criticism that, where we read, um, Uh, Gustin poets only, that was like it, or no, it wasn't Augusta. It was earlier than that. And I can't remember what they're called, but, yeah, so it's having now become a writer. I keep thinking, I'd love to go back and college courses in English, just a few more literature courses or whatever,

Tasha 17:04

Yeah. my son who that the former three-year-old, he's a senior at St. John's college in Annapolis now, and that is a small liberal arts school where you don't have a major, even you, everybody does the same program. They start with Homer and just go through, like over this past summer they had to read war and peace and it's so I'm so jealous. Why did I not know about this? When I was looking at colleges because they look at science and they look at math and they do Greek and they do French and they read Latin poetry and they have such, they are getting that true sort of just immersion in the humanities and they know how those kids know how to think.

Susanne 17:47

They

Tasha 17:48

learn, write a paper, write a lot. Yeah,

Susanne 17:51

I, I taught for a year, just after I got my PhD. I was a visiting assistant professor at Columbia for a year and their program. everybody has these four. Courses that they have to take, music, humanities. I can't remember what they all are, but they're all humanities courses and it's required for everyone in Columbia college to take them, and I got to teach music, humanities, which was really fun. It was my favorite course to teach.

Tasha 18:20

Yeah. That's so neat. and at St. John's they do music. Like they learn how to do Gregorian chant and they actually have late study composition a little bit so that, you're not going to be an expert, but you're getting enough that you know how to relate to it. And. If you want to do more, you could. But I just think, so many people don't get that.

Susanne 18:41

No,

Tasha 18:41

they don't. They don't have the opportunity if you don't have those kinds of corridors.

Susanne 18:45

Yeah. And this is a nice way to segue into your. Recent book, which I was so impressed with and not just because it was a gripping story and I really couldn't figure out until almost the end who might've done it. but the way you interwove the, history, the ancient history and the place itself, Was very skillful. And now I understand more why and how you were able to do that because that's how your brain works. But, talk to me a little bit about setting it in the setting. The story, you said it all in Vesuvius, but in not emphasis obvious, not literally in Pompei. And I

Tasha 19:26

knew what you meant.

Susanne 19:26

Yeah. You knew what I meant. but it spans a big geographic and temporal. area and I especially liked your, the one guy who was from Montana connection. But anyway, so let me think, what was the question that was going to go along with this observation? I think it was. I reading your author's note. you went to Pompei. and that was very clear. cause the place was really vivid, but how did you decide exactly what you were going to do? How did you have these two parallel stories and you bring them together at the end. How did that come about?

Tasha 20:09

first of all, thank you because I truly appreciate your kind words. You are such an amazing writer. and so that is really just I'm honored. Thank you. The answer to your question. Oh, actually first I have to just go on a tangent, that Sparta kiss and his rebellion for awhile, they actually hit out in the crater of Vesuvius. So they were in Visy because you couldn't be in Vesuvius.

Susanne 20:30

So unless I'm so stupid after all,

Tasha 20:34

absolutely not. I have a very weird writing process that, the thing I mainly CA there's an old new Yorker cartoon. That's two, I think they're math people cause they're well, they're math. People are scientists and they've got this giant Blackboard and I think they're doing some kind of a proof or something and we want to it, and they've got, by numbers, like step one, step two, step three. And. One says to the other, step three is a miracle occurs. And then we solve the proof. And I feel like that's my writing technique. I don't have the kind of brain I'm so envious of people who do, but I can't write an outline if I wrote, first of all, it would just be, people will be like, do you even speak English? This is in the sensible. I. I need a really solid starting point. And then if I'm writing a mystery, obviously I need to know who the bad guy is. And I need to know in quite great detail in my head, what his motivation, his, or her motivation. and I know that somehow my protagonist will figure it all out by the end, but I have no idea. How I will get from that beginning to that end. And I think that comes from two things. One being a reader. I don't want to know why would I want to know why would I keep writing? If I already knew what was going to happen, I'd be bored. but also I feel like a lot of. My training ground, so to speak other than reading was, you know, if you've got, was being a mom, when you have a little kid, They don't want you to tell them stories. And so I was constantly telling my son's stories and you know, you don't have the luxury with a toddler of saying, all right, now, let me think and make an outline and see if the structures are right. You got to just keep telling the story. And so I think that helped me. Develop a kind of instinctual way of figuring out what to write next. I feel I can feel if we haven't seen a character recently enough where I can feel if I don't know, it's weird and. miraculous. I'm always astounded when it actually does all come together in the end, because very frequently I'm thinking, yeah, no idea how this is going to work out. And even with the two stories intertwined because they have to come together at the end and. I did not know how that was. I mean, well, I guess I shouldn't even say, I didn't know. I, now I'm far enough along after 14 books, but I know this is how my brain works. And so I no longer at the beginning, I'd be like, I have to know. And now I'm like, yeah, you're not going to know. I think a lot of it comes subconsciously, because so many times when I'm writing a manuscript and I'm typing away and I'm thinking. Why is this happening on page 37? And then I'll be writing page 382. And I'm like, Oh, that's why this happened on page, you know, the earlier. So I don't necessarily know, which is probably a sign of a very disorganized mind. but with the pomp pay story, I started off in the way I normally do. I want, I tried to pick a location that. it's interesting from a historical perspective, both in the, now I'm actually in the Edwardian era. I never thought queen Victoria would ever die, but I'm finally in 1903, so she's been dead. so I want it to be a T I set the series in motion in a certain year, and so I've got to, I can't all of a sudden have it be 1730. But when I look at that second timeline, I want it to be something that compliments what's going on in that Edwardian story. and I want it to be something that, you know, Emily and my protagonist, she is a curious, interested person. And so I want her to be able to go somewhere where, especially early on in the series, I wanted her to see other cultures.

Susanne 24:20

We're still recording is still going and you were on a, you were on a roll erupted you, but anyway,

Tasha 24:28

no, that's totally, please. I need to be interrupted cause I just babble and hopefully at least semi coherently. No, but I actually,

Susanne 24:36

I'm going to interrupt you with one thing that I think that you're describing about your process you're able to do because you are a natural storyteller. You are naturally, you have a sense in yourself of what makes a story. There are plenty of writers and I work with a lot of them who. Don't have that sense and they have to look for a different way to figure out I hate outlining myself too, it's another thing, but

Tasha 25:02

yeah, cause it seems like people are divided into the outliners and the non outliners.

Susanne 25:07

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the non-animal, they can either be, they can either be people who just write and tear their hair out and have to write 10 drafts or they're people who have enough of a sense in inner sense, like you to how the story, how to keep a story propelling towards its end.

Tasha 25:27

Yeah. And I really find that I get a lot of very productive ideas. When I'm doing something else, like I love to cook. I love to cook. And I think that sometimes when you let your brain do its thing in the background, so if I'm cooking, I'm paying attention at the front of brain is cooking back up. Brain is figuring out the problem or whatever. and all of a sudden you'll just think. Oh, I have to go right there, but if I tried to actively figure out the solution to whatever is troubling me in a manuscript, that's I, my own worst enemy.

Susanne 26:04

and then the other thing is with writing is that. You can edit, you can change stuff.

Tasha 26:13

Exactly. And that's where, cause I actually, I like to, I do all my research first. you can't ever literally do that because there's going to be something that you have to dip back into to find a specific fact. But I like to have read everything done. Primary sources got all that stuff. So it's. in my notebook and hopefully in my head, and then just get the story down and I'm like, I don't care if it's ugly, if it's full of typos, if they're, I'm not going to worry about word echoes at that moment, I just want to get the story down because then you've got a big stack of papers. I love revising. I love you need to go through with, different colored pens, that mean different things and it doesn't have to be perfect when you first put it down. Yeah,

Susanne 26:57

that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. it always amazes me. There are a few writers who do that, whose first draft is their only draft cannot imagine it myself, but yeah, I can't either.

Tasha 27:10

Yeah. I don't think that would be fun for me, but I think it's again, it's how your brain works.

Susanne 27:14

Yeah.

Tasha 27:14

some people really plan.

Susanne 27:16

Yeah, it's true. so back to your book, I loved the secondary character, the secondary. the ancient storyline. How did you think of that character? Where did she come from?

Tasha 27:27

she really, she came from when I start doing my research. I, especially, if it's a dual timeline, I'll have the Edwardian things that I need to read. And like for this one, it would be travelogues. And there, th the Victorians and the Edwardians loved to keep diaries, write letters, published their memoirs. so there's a lot of that kind of thing. And, but with the ancient story, I just started by just saying, okay, so I want to read plenty. I want to read, cause plenty watched. The Vesuvius eruption, and we have a written account of that. He wrote it in a letter to the historian tack of those Tacitus. I'd always say at Tactus, which my son has said, are you actually an ancient Roman? Because that would have been their pronunciation, but we say us,

Susanne 28:15

right, exactly.

Tasha 28:17

But he was in a Villa on the other side of the Bay watching the eruption and what I really love about, so we have this. First person account. and w what I find really interesting is that everyone assumed through the centuries that, first witnesses are notoriously unreliable, actually. and so scientists volcanologists thought, that's not literally what the eruption looked like, because he talks about this. Tree this pine tree shaped cloud, and that didn't make any sense to them. And, but, it's still a worthy historical document until Mount St. Helens erupted. When Mount St Helens erupted, it was exactly as plenty had described. And they now, in fact, it was just that no one. Had witnessed and written an account of that kind of reduction before. And they now call that a plenty in eruption. So as I'm doing like that kind of research where I, cause I don't know where I'm going to go. So I just want to learn about the time period and the place. So I ran a lot of wonderful, like academic books, secondary sources on. Ancient Rome. And there's a wonderful book called invisible Romans that talks about slaves and prostitutes and the people who we don't get from regular history. So I just, I do a lot of work on with reading social history, because that's what I mean, it's just, I'm interested in the daily life. What was it like to live in HomePay? and generally from doing that, so I start wide and then get more narrow. something will come to me and I'll say, okay, I want to write about somebody in this kind of. if she's if I'm writing about a young woman in Pompei, what can she be? And in this case, I wanted her to be a poet and I wanted her to be a slave, but one of the things that, Roman slavery ancient each slavery in the ancient world is quite. obviously there are ways in which it's similar, but there are a lot of differences from what we think about when we think about contemporary slavery, or 19th century slavery in the, in the United States. Romans slavery was, it was in the ancient world was such a, just part of life. you're Julius Caesar, you go conquer people. You bring back slaves. If whoever lost becomes the slaves. but in the Roman world, some of the first people, they were conquering were the Greeks and the Greeks were educated and had this wonderful culture. So the slaves, I mean, they're slaves and let's be clear. That sucks. It sucks to be a slave. It's never a good idea to make people's slaves in role. However, There was always a path to citizenship for slaves, which I find fascinating it's called manumission. So you could save up your money and buy your freedom. So right there, there's a big difference. The slaves,

Susanne 31:15

slaves. Yeah.

Tasha 31:17

your master would pay you sometimes They did have money. So you could save up and buy your freedom. And in fact, there's all kinds of wonderful archeological records, many of which come out of Pompei, where you've got, the document recording that you know, now you're a free man. You're a full citizen of Rome because the Romans, they were all about Romanizing. We're going to come concrete you, and we're going to destroy your entire culture, but you get to be Roman and they wanted people to be Roman. so as a slave, you had a path toward that. You also could be freed. You're a lot of, people wealthy, Romans would free their slaves when they died, or if they just. they lived in your household and especially the ones who were more like running a library or running or tutoring your children because, wealthy Romans had libraries in their houses. And so you would want a Greek slave in charge of that because they were the smartest, most knowledgeable. Librarians, you were living with those people and, often in a way sort of socializing with them so that you become friends with your master sometimes. and this is not again, I'm not trying to paint some rosy picture of, Oh, see, it's okay to have slaves if you're nice to them. No, it's still not. Okay. But it's just such a different. Approach to the whole thing. And so in the book I wanted, it's one thing that I found when I was reading those, you don't have a lot of primary sources about slaves lives, which is part of the reason that wonderful academic book about the invisible Romans is necessary. But when I was doing that research, what I found is that there are a lot of cases where you get freed slaves. Who are like, yeah. You know, my life kind of sucks now because. Yeah, I'm free, but I live in a crappy slalom and I used to live in this beautiful pillow with a view over the Bay and, and I find that really interesting because it's, again, still doesn't mean that slavery is a good thing, what nothing is ever as cut and dry as we think. And so I liked the idea of Cassandra. Whose father is, is two tutors. So the family's children are tutored cause they're all grown now, and runs their library. And she's got a pretty nice life. she's a slave, but what that means is that she hangs out with the daughter of the household and does her hair. And they sit around in the courtyard talking about poetry. And then when she gets she and her father get their freedom, she has to go live in this, crummy little pokey, dark house in the middle of Pompei. Certainly doesn't have a view of the Bay of Naples that, her life actually becomes harder. And I always like things in history. There's so many great examples in history of times when. Something that you think, this, Oh, obviously this was so much better than that. And yes, in ways it is, but there's so many contradictions and I just love that kind of thing. So I wanted Cassandra to not be entirely delighted that she has to move out of this beautiful Villa and, See how she could then start to navigate the city, which she knows, but ha in a way hasn't really lived in until she and her father.

Susanne 34:26

Yeah. I found that fascinating as well. And the. The research you wear it very likely. In other words, it was just a believable story. It wasn't like, wow, isn't this amazing. And, whatever. Anyway, so do you have, Oh, I, you know what I have to ask you because I've read a bunch of historical mysteries lately and talked to an author too. And so many of them have married couples. As sluice. Yeah. And my question is why is that? what made you decide that she should be married?

Tasha 35:04

I guess for me, the reason I did it was that. I was starting the first book in the series of set in 1890. And I wanted Emily to be a young woman, because like you were saying about having protagonists who were on the cusp of adulthood, she was actually had already been married, but she was widowed very quickly. but in 1890 in the British upper class, a girl has very few options. you. You just, can't not be married, it's just not, it's not, my wet hair is not only gone. you can't, if you're, of course you could not be married. You could be the tragic spinster, right? you're either under the control of your parents because you're an unmarried and still living in their house. Or you're under the control of a husbands. And so I needed her to be a widow so that she could do her own thing. Cause widows fall into that gray, weird area where they don't need a chaperone. They can do what they want. and as in most societies, if you have enough money, you basically can do what you want. and,

Susanne 36:06

and widows could in a lot of places own their own property in their own. Right. And run their husband's businesses, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Tasha 36:14

exactly. But I did want her to find a partner and I was really, I wanted her to find someone who could be her intellectual equal. I wanted to, I don't know. I wanted her to have that companionship and I also really didn't want it to be like a back and forth. will she get together with him? Will she not? Because I just find that's like titillating for a little bit. And then you're like, really are these people, you're on books. You're reading a series and it's like book 27 and they're still like, I don't know if I can marry you. And you know, that drives me crazy. So I wanted, I wanted to give her that because once she was a widow, she didn't have to have, she could, Gertrude bell went around and was mapping Persia by herself. She had a team, but before she married a Bedouin, Sheikh and lived in a tent, so she could have, but I liked that idea of say, so often, books are propelled by con like romantic conflict and I'm wanting to just have, what, it's nice to have a little romance and it doesn't always have to be the source of the conflict. And so I wanted to do that. and I, but sometimes you do think, boy, it's a lot easier if you can just have. Romantic conflict, propelling things. But what I didn't want to do that, I wanted her to get married and just have a stable, good marriage that's there. because her husband is going to have had experiences she couldn't have and can help her in ways expanding her horizons.

Susanne 37:38

Yeah. I liked the balance between them. I have to say, because. She was clearly the protagonist and yet he had a very important role to play. And as you say, supported her and I saw him as a kind of buffer too, because, buffering her from the wrong kind of attention or the wrong kind of, whatever. So it, it worked really well, but I was just curious as to what led to it. But anyway, yeah. Despite all the interruptions I have kept you talking a long time. First of all, what's coming up for you? what's your next book?

Tasha 38:14

so I have a book called the dark heart of Florence, and I know I hesitated when I said that because the one thing with my books is it they twice? Yes. Twice. Once. Yeah. The titles always get changed so many times that I'm like, what's that? So I just think of it as the Florence book. it comes out, in March and finds Emily and Colin in Florence, obviously. and so there's, and then the secondary timeline is about a. Young woman during the round. Of course. I mean it's during the Renaissance up through Savonarola so

Susanne 38:49

yeah, that sounds

Tasha 38:51

quite fun to write

Susanne 38:52

like great fun. It does. Yeah. I love that period. For me personally,

Tasha 38:57

it's just that it's so well, it's so fascinating on so many levels. And one of the things that, the reason I picked it was I read, Nancy and I have such, I don't have COVID, but I feel like I have COVID fog. But, there's a wonderful book swerve. That's about. You have these book hunters in the Renaissance who went around to monasteries, looking for ancient. what a great time to be alive, right? your job is, Lorenzo to Bennett. She hires you to go scour, monastery. For the light, the monastic libraries for Aristotle and whatever. so I, this, the swerve is about how the rediscovery of the manuscript of Lucretia says on the nature of things, which is the Chrysalis was the Roman Epic poet. he's writing about really Epicurean philosophy, but the idea of the swerve is that manuscript being found and rediscovered. Really made it possible for the Renaissance to happen. So I was like, wait, I can get Renaissance and my ancient world at the same

Susanne 39:55

time. This is good. No, that is awesome. And I cannot wait to read it. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. But yeah, it's. This has been great. And I will tell, I hope you will come on again and talk to us about your next book. And this is why I do this podcast. I love talking to other authors about their process, about the books, about everything like that. It's just such a treat for me.

Tasha 40:23

Oh no. thank you. It's such a treat for me. And we were saying at the beginning that COVID, hasn't changed for writers. You know, we work from home anyway, but it has taken that away. Yeah, you don't get to sit down with your writer, friends and talk about the stuff. And I do really miss that. So thank you for inviting me

Susanne 40:40

total pleasure. We'll have a great day and enjoy, and I will be talking to you again.

Tasha 40:47

Okay. So I look forward to it. Thank you so much.

Susanne 40:50

Thank you.

Tasha 40:51

Bye.