Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness mystery series about a penniless English lady who’s 34th in line to the British throne is well-placed for a surge in popularity with Meghan Markle's marriage to Prince Harry. But this versatile author is not resting on her laurels.

Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Rhys talks about her latest hot selling World War II novels and the one thing she’s done that’s helped make her a multi-award winning author.

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

The inside story on being related to royalty

Why 'cozy' mysteries are under-rated 

Why she's drawn to World War II in recent work

Emulating Harry Potter in a fun children's series

The writers she admires most

The one thing she'd done that's made her success

Where to find Rhys Bowen: 

Website: http://rhysbowen.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RhysBowenAuthor/

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhysbowen

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

Rhys: Thank you very much, it's lovely chatting all the way to New Zealand.

Jenny: Beginning at the beginning - was there a “Once Upon A Time" moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if there was a catalyst for this, what was it?

Rhys Bowen - Popular mysteries

Rhys: Well if there was, I can't remember it, because apparently my mother says that I started writing when I was four.

Since then, I've made up stories for myself, I've told stories to my brother. In my teens I really wanted to be a movie star, so I wrote scripts for myself in which I was always the tragic heroine and everybody cried at the end.

So I've always written all my life. It never occurred to me that would be my profession; it was just part of me, something I did. I made up stories. When I found I was actually writing books and people were paying me for them, it was a huge bonus.

Jenny: Oh that's wonderful! I gather you did start out by doing a script at the BBC?

Rhys: Yes. Right after college, I went into the BBC as a trainee, and I soon found myself in the Drama department. I was working in radio drama, which was huge in those days. Unfortunately it's dying out now, but we had several original plays per week as well as serials, and adaptations of other plays. I found myself working on a play and thinking- if I'd written that, I don't think I would have ended it that way.

So I had an idea for a play, and wrote it, walked down the hall to the head of drama with it and said "I've just written this play". About three days later, he called me in and he said "we really like this, we're going to do it".

So that was my introduction to being a professional writer! I think working with plays to start with is a great training ground if you're going to write fiction later, because with a play it's very important to introduce the characters, work out how they get on and how they get off the scene; how they convey their personality through their words. So it's been a good training ground.

Jenny: Have you done quite a few scripts?

Rhys: Not many. I probably did four or five and then not for many years. When a movie company wanted to do Her Royal Spyness, they said "would you like to write the script?" I said no. It's a different world, and I'm not in it anymore. So I'd much rather have someone who knew about scripts compose it.

Jenny: Has that actually made the screens yet?

Rhys: No, an English movie company bought it and was goin...