Julie McElwain’s time travel mystery series featuring FBI profiler Kendra Donovan set in 1815 London has been described as ‘Jane Austen meets the Alias TV series.’  She’s made top sci fi and mystery lists every year since the series was launched, with ‘Most addictive mystery” one of the accolades.Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Julie talks about what working in the world of TV soaps has taught her and why she’s never read Diana Gabaldon.

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

How Nancy Drew got her startedDifferent technologies: Can you light fire with a tinder?The magic appeal of time travel storiesImportant lessons from The Young and the RestlessThe writers Julie is reading right nowWhat she'd do differently second time around

Where to find Julie McElwain: Website: https://www.juliemcelwainauthor.com/ Facebook: @JulieMcElwain Twitter: @JulieMcElwain

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

Julie McElwain - Author

Jenny: Hello there Julie and welcome to the show, it's great to have you with us.Julie: Thank you so much, I'm really honoured.

Jenny: You’re an award winning journalist and you’re still working in TV – which we will get to a little later – but in terms of fiction – when did you get the bug to write fiction?   Was there a “Once Upon A time moment” – an epiphany about tackling make believe story telling?

Julie: Just like a lot of writers I think, people fall in love with reading. But I can tell you, probably my first time I read a Nancy Drew I fell in love with the character. I fell in love with this world they were creating and I remember I was probably about ten at the time and I thought- this is what I want to do. It just so intrigued me at the time.Back then, there was no such thing as iPads or laptops, so I got a notebook and a pen and I just started writing. I've been pretty much writing fiction ever since that time I wanted to create a Nancy Drew series. It's very private for me though until I gradually did it, and I had no idea I would end up writing a book that was published. But the love of writing, I can probably trace to that time.

Jenny: Sure. So your Kendra Donovan series - is that not the first fiction you've done?Julie: No. Like a lot of writers, I think people write and you try to send it out and it gets rejected. So I probably have several books in a drawer somewhere. This is my first fiction that has been published.

Classic Dr Who an early inspiration

Jenny: And then you came up with a great premise – an FBI agent gets wormholed back into 19th century Britain – one critic described it as a “genre-bender with a clever gimmick.”  What made you settle on time travel as your vehicle?Julie: I've always been very intrigued by the whole time travel concept. In college, I remember watching Doctor Who, the old shows. They'd have a couple of time travel episodes. So I've always been very intrigued by it, and when it comes to time travel there are a lot of romances that are time travel that have always been something they've done.  It was such an interesting concept to me to take a modern woman who is so amazing in her career- you just put her back in the past and she has to solve crimes. She does not have any of the modern day technology, or everything she's relied on.Just being a modern day woman put back into the past, into the early 19th century before women had the right to vote, all this stuff. I think that would throw off your world even more! So I guess I just came up with the idea and it intrigued me and I thought that would be an interesting mystery series that would have a bit more of an interesting hook than other mystery series.

Murder in Time - Book One

Jenny: Definitely. There are so many avenues for interesting little sidelines, but we'll get onto that.Jenny: Your heroine Kendra Donovan is the ultimate outlier – even...