Critics rave about the unexpected and clever plot twists in Fiona Davis's historical bestsellers, dual timeline stories set in the Big Apple's most iconic buildings, from the Chelsea Hotel to Grand Central Station and the Dakota building to the Barbizon.

Hi there. I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today in the 98th episode of The Joys of Binge Reading, Fiona talks about the famous and sometimes eccentric people who bring New York - and her books to life.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

What excites Fiona about historic hotelsThe thing that shocked her most researching her latest bookWhy New York is a great place to set novelsThe 100th anniversary of The Age of InnocenceHow film is influencing fictionWhat she'd do differently second time around

Where to find Fiona Davis: 

Website: www.fionadavis.net

Facebook: @FionaDavisauthor

Twitter: @fionajdavis

Instagram:  @fionajdavis

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word, but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Fiona. Hello there Fiona, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.

Fiona Davis, historical fiction author.

Fiona: Thank

you. I'm thrilled to be here.

Jenny: Now

this is the question I always start with, but it never gets stale. Was there

and Once Upon a Time moment for your fiction writing, a moment when you thought

'I’ve just got to do this' or I will have wasted my life.

The 'Once Upon A Time' moment

Fiona: That's

a great question. Yes, and it came to me later. I was in my late 40s when it

hit.   What happened was, I had been

working as a journalist for a number of years and there was a story that I

thought would make a great article about the Barbizon Hotel and some of the older

tenants who were still living there, as it was turned into luxury condos.

And I thought oh, what a great story - it

represents the change in the city and the building, over time, but the women

who live there were very private and they would not be interviewed. I just

couldn't shake it. And I thought ‘All right. You know what? I'm going to make

this into a book and I will write it.’ That means I have to make stuff up and

that's very scary.

The Dollhouse - Fiona Davis' first novel, set in the Barbizon Hotel, New York.

But I was really determined and I'm so glad

I did it. It's just it took my career in a completely new direction, which has

been really fulfilling.

The Chelsea Girls - latest book

Jenny: It's wonderful. You've now got four best-selling historical novels to your credit, and the most recent of them, The Chelsea Girls, is also focused on  another very famous New York hotel, the Chelsea Hotel, which is almost notorious because of the numerous luminaries that have lived there, everyone from Dylan Thomas to Janis Joplin.  Tell us about the Chelsea.

Fiona: Yes,

sure. So, the hotel really intimidated me as an idea for setting a book there,

because so many people have passed through its doors. It was built in 1884 as

kind of a utopian cooperative, but that didn't work and it went bankrupt and it

became a hotel, but one where people could stay for years and sometimes even

decades.

For years it's been this a hotbed of intrigue in terms of both art and politics an...