What’s going on in the world is not a mere distraction in the writing process, it’s a mind-bending, hard-to-fathom series of catastrophes with roots in a few different causes. Let me explain. Without getting specific and naming names, the genesis of my struggles (and I can only specify this post by how it affects me), started way back in 2015 with ugliness rearing its political head, causing a fissure in this country that goes on to this day. We have had divisions in the United States before, but never have they been more apparent, more deeply felt, with two sides locked into their conflicting beliefs, each charting a course that the other side disparages except maybe those that triggered the Civil War. These beliefs are not just polite disagreements but a vicious clash of ideas and direction, steeped in anger and finger-pointing and buoyed by lies and disinformation, promoted by men and women with their own political and personal agendas. Politics has always been a dirty business, g...

Armistice Day. November 11th. A date I’ve known all my life and commemorated annually with a red poppy in the buttonhole as long as I lived in England; commemorated—without really understanding its meaning until I started to write about the 1920s. I’ve learned a lot about the first world war in the 20 years since. Though I decided not to make its horrors the focus of my series, I soon realized that two subjects that attracted me to the period were inextricably linked to the war. First, the country could not afford the extravagances of fashion, so women’s clothes became much simpler and more comfortable; and second, the huge loss of life in the trenches helped open an unprecedented range of careers to women. The more I learned, the more careful I had to be to pick and choose what information I used in my mysteries, especially as they’re basically lighthearted. We’ve all read (or started to read) novels where the author has attempted to cram in every scrap of extensive research. Noth...