Bestselling author Gill Paul returns with a brilliant novel about Lady Evelyn Herbert, the woman who took the very first step into the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, and who lived in the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle, and the long after-effects of the Curse of Pharaohs.

Jenny: We're in our second episode of Encore, the new show for Binge Reading On Patreon supporters, talking to favorite authors, people who've already been on the podcast, about their latest release.

And today we've got international best seller Gill Paul who's already been on the podcast twice before talking about her latest book, The Collector's Daughter,

Gill Paul: The Collector's Daughter

Gill’s previous JOBR shows:

Gill Paul’s Famous Fabulous Lives, from November 2019: https://thejoysofbingereading.com/gill-paul-famous-fabulous-lives/

And: Love and Betrayal from September 2020: https://thejoysofbingereading.com/jackie-kennedy/

I love the way Gill makes historical events come alive in her fiction, and this book is no exception.

The Collector's Daughter is a dual timeline novel moving between the 1920s and the 1970s telling the story of Lady Evelyn Herbert, the English aristocrat who was involved with the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s, and went on to live through the long-term after-effects of the supposed Curse of the Pharaohs

She's also got the claim to fame of having grown up in the ‘real’ Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle, where the popular TV series was filmed.

Gill, It's great to have you with us again.

Jenny: So welcome to the show Gill, and tell us about Pharaoh's tomb and Lady Eve part in it all.

Gill: Thanks so much for inviting me on the journey. It's lovely to talk to you.  Evelyn was there with her father, the Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter when the tomb was discovered and opened in 1922. And all the evidence is that they sneaked in by night without the Egyptian authorities watching over them

Lady Eve first to enter tomb

And the Eve was the first one to crawl in and she was a young lady from the English aristocracy. And  I thought ‘Gosh’, what would it have been like for her, I'd always been interested in Egyptian stories from school days, but it only really came home to me in 2011 when I visited Egypt. And I went to the Valley of the Kings.

We went down that long corridor that Eve and her father and Howard Carter would have gone down in 1922 and saw where his tomb had been and then went up to Cairo and saw all the artefacts in the Egyptian museum.

And that was staggering. I mean the enormous wealth of all the gold tombs and the funeral masks and the jewelry, and then little personal details like Tutankhamun’s had sandals that pictures of Nubians on the soles, the  Nubians were the enemies of the Egyptians so every time he walked, he was walking on his enemies.

I loved all the little personal touches I saw in the tomb. That’s what really brought it to life for me.

Jenny: It's amazing. Now, one of the themes of the story is penetrates the whole story really is the long-term belief that there was some sort of curse involved in opening the tomb and Lady Evelyn did actually suffer quite a lot of personal misfortune in her life, including being involved in a massive car accident, which resulted in a series of small TIA’s, as they're called and later more serious strokes.

And part of the story is her as an older lady in the 1970s, when her memory is impaired with memory loss and things, that's an interesting part of it because quite a significant part of the story is told by this older character who's impaired.

That was obviously something you deliberately chose to handle that way.

Two photographs bookmarked life

Gill: My inspiration for this novel when I decided to write about Lady Eve's part and this huge historical event or two photographs that kind of bookmarked her life.

Lady Eve at tomb entrance with her father and Howard Carter