Marilyn Todd’s latest Victorian thriller introduces England’s

first crime scene photographer, Julia McAllister, and offers readers the same

racy pacey action that was the trademark of her 13 book Ancient Rome mystery

series.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Marilyn explains why she loves resilient heroines and her life on a French hilltop surrounded by chateaux and vineyards.

Six

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

Marilyn's wildly fertile childhood imaginationHow she got to work on her writingThe joys of living on a French hilltopThe nastiness of SpartaThe writers she admires mostWhat she'd do differently second time around

Where to find Marilyn Todd:

Website: http://www.marilyntodd.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Marilyn-Todd-Crime-Writer-283458208429732/

 Twitter: @marilyntodd12

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40180.Marilyn_Todd

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 Marilyn. .  Hello there Marilyn and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Marilyn: And I am absolutely chuffed to be here. Jenny, I really am. Thank you so much for inviting me. And what a fantastic find. Joys of Binge Reading is . I'm a kid in a candy shop here.

Marilyn Todd, historic thriller author

Jenny: It's

wonderful. Look, beginning at the beginning, was there a Once Upon A Time

moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? And if so, was there some

sort of catalyst for it?

An active imagination

Marilyn: Not really. I was bedridden as a kid a lot of the time - as a small child - and not being a girly girl, there's only so many Teddies Tea Parties you can host. And it was just me and my imagination really. I'm an only child, so I'd look at the drawings on my Mother's dress making patterns. And I'd ask who are all these impossibly elegant creatures? Where are they going?  Who are they meeting, and who are they dressing up for? And in fact, every picture I looked at, a story would form until it got to the point where even the school projects came out as stories with characters and conversations.

Creating adventures

And in those days, you'd literally cut and paste.  I'd pore over - because I was stuck in bed as I say - so I'd pore over National Geographic magazines, whisking myself off on these fantastic adventures, discovering lost tombs in the desert and diving on shipwrecks in shark-infested waters, paddling up the Amazon, although the novelty of  wanting to slash my way through a jungle soon wore off.Even at that age, I was never a camping sort of girl. And spiders weren't my thing either. But what I could see myself doing was being the first woman to lead a wagon train, that sort of thing. So I mean, we're talking heroines even back then.

Even at that age, I was never a camping sort of girl. And  spiders weren't my thing either. But what I could see myself doing was being the first woman to lead a wagon train, that sort of thing. So I mean, we're talking heroines even back then.

I Claudia - the first book in the Claudia Seferius series by Marilyn Todd

Jenny: Yes. And all these years later, you've published 16 historical thrillers, including the thirteen-book, Claudia Seferius series set in First Century Rome. Is that where you started out, in First Century Rome or did you have some other unpublished works that perhaps didn't see the light of day?

How Marilyn got started

Marilyn: I'd written a swashbuckling romance, historical romance, which was called The Black Pearl. But don't tell Captain Sparrow, he's nicked it off me, and I submitted it to one of the top literary agents.  I got the only rejection letter I've ever had. It was a standard typewritten affair. And at the bottom, she'd written how much she enjoyed it, and how well the book read,