RHYS REVISITS HER RESEARCH

RHYS BOWEN:  I'm currently in Arizona where it is unusually cold (yes, I know you East Coaster will laugh when I tell you it's in the fifties and we had a frost warning this week). I showed you the picture of our house yesterday and those incredibly high ceilings mean it's hard to heat. This was not a consideration that popped into my mind when I first saw the house and thought how amazing that high ceiling was.

Luckily I am in pre-launch status for ABOVE THE BAY OF ANGELS, doing about an interview a day and talking about my experiences in Nice. So I have to keep checking the photos I took the last time I was there to remind myself what it was like. And I thought I'd share a few today to warm us all up. That coastline is one of the most stunning on Earth.

 When you drive from Nice to Monte Carlo one vista opens up after another. (taken from a speeding bus so a little wobbly)

Luxury yachts sparkle on blue water. This is in St. Jean Cap Ferat, which was close to our apartment and one of our favorite places to go for lunch. (It was also featured in my book as King Leopold of the Belgians built a villa there for his young mistress, and very savvily also bought up most of the land. Today an apartment there sells for millions.


This was the view from where we rented an apartment to do my research. It's in Villefranche-sur-Mer. (so called because the town helped keep the area free from pirates long ago and thus acquired a tax-free status)

And this is where I spent a lot of my time, up in Cimiez, where Queen Victoria stayed and most of the buildings date from her time there. This is from the Roman Amphitheater that actually plays a small part in my story.

This is a man-made waterfall, part of the city's original water supply, that was one of Queen Victoria's favorite outings. The bus ride up to it is hair-raising as it zig zags up the hillside extremely fast. But the view from it is worth the danger!

Lastly here I am, slaving away for my craft. (one does need a little time away from libraries, antiquarian bookshops and Queen Victoria's haunts. (yes, those are oysters)

Aren't we lucky to have these brilliant photographs that can take us back to places we've loved. I see the tiny black and whites of my childhood and they don't evoke memories in the same way. What is the best place where you've ever done research?

The Making of a Story: Rhys reveals the truth behind Above the Bay of Angels.

RHYS BOWEN: I exactly one week today my new book, ABOVE THE BAY OF ANGELS, will be published. It's set in the city of Nice on the French Riviera and it is a story about Queen Victoria and a young woman who cooks for her.

So how did I get involved with Queen Victoria. My usual focus is on the first half of the Twentieth Century, especially the two great wars. I had no intention of going further back in time and no particular interest in Queen Victoria. So this story came about entirely by lucky accident.

I was in Nice a few years ago and visiting Roman remains up on a hillside above the town. We saw this beautiful big white building stretching across the hillside. It had the words Excelsior Regina on it. A gardener was working in the garden and I asked him if it was a hotel.
"No Madame," he said. It was now apartments but it used to be a hotel because it was "built for your queen."
"For Queen Elizabeth?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No madame. For Queen Victoria."

That was the first time I learned that Queen Victoria had visited the South of France. So I started delving into this and discovered that she had spent her winters there during the latter years of her life. So a clever businessman had built this hotel for her, hoping to lure the rich and famous from the rest of Europe to Nice as a winter destination. Victoria came on a private train with her bedroom furniture, her maids, footmen, cooks, ladies and gentlemen... oh, and a regiment of Highland Pipers, and then said, 'I don't want anybody to know I'm the queen."

Don't you think the private train, retinue of 100 and the pipers were a bit of a give-away?

Then she said, "I want to be known as simple Lady Balmoral while I'm here." Yes, right.
I found all this fascinating. The more I dug, the more I realized I had the makings of a good story. In 1897 there was scandal as she insisted on bringing her Indian servant, Abdul Karim with her. Her gentlemen realized he was a dangerous man who was privy to too much sensitive information and passing it along to the head of the Muslim League in India. In spite of their threats she still brought him with her and there were discussions on how to get rid of him! Also her son, the Prince of Wales, thought she'd gone senile and was trying to come up with a way to remove her from the throne.
So plenty of intrigue to write about.
Then I thought: she's coming to a new hotel with French chefs AND she brings her own cooks. How stupid is that? And I went one stage further: what if one of her cooks was a young woman with a terrible secret and becomes involved in a murder plot? And so Above the Bay of Angels was born!

I came back to Nice and started research in detail. I found a helpful librarian and the main library who dug out amazing stuff including the plans and brochure when the hotel was first build and who stayed on which floor.  Then I really hit pay-dirt. In a small bookstore in Antibes I found a locally published volume on Queen Victoria in Nice. It listed who accompanied her, who she visited, who came to stay, where she went on excursions etc etc. Perfect.

So we have a young woman with a secret
Queen Victoria
The French Riviera
French cuisine
A whiff of royal scandal
A hint of danger
Would you say that's a perfect recipe for a book?

So a lot of what you will read in this book is true historical fact. And I'm interested to know: do you like to learn real history from historical novels? Does it upset you if the writer gets something wrong?

What We're Writing: Rhys and Royals

RHYS BOWEN:  Once again I'm writing about the royal family, only this time it's Queen Victoria and the year is 1897. She is an old woman who now spends her winters on the Riviera in Nice, in a splendid new hotel built for her. She travels on a private train with a retinue of her own staff including her own cooks, some highland pipers, her Indian secretary and all her own bedroom furniture.

My story features a young woman who becomes her cook and then encounters various problems, one of which appears in the excerpt below, proving that it wasn't ever easy to be a female in a man's world. But my heroine's problems go beyond sexual harassment to being blackmailed and becoming mixed up in a couple of plots.

And I can't give you a title yet, because we don't have one. So let's just call it QUEEN VICTORIA'S COOK... probably not VICTORIA'S SECRETS!

I was halfway down the grand staircase when I heard footsteps behind me. I paused and glanced around to see the Prince of Wales following me. I flattened myself against the wall, allowing him to pass, but instead he drew level with me.

“What’s your hurry, bright eyes?” he asked. He was looking at me with a sort of half-smile.

“I have to get back to my duties, Your Royal Highness,” I replied, my voice scarcely more than a whisper. “I have to make the puddings for dinner.”

“Nonsense.” He chuckled, a deep, throaty chuckle. “Nobody can complain if the queen kept you, can they?  Or even if the Prince of Wales kept you.” He took a step closer to me. Rather too close to be comfortable. “What a delightful little creature you are.” He raised a hand and stroked my cheek. “Do I detect a wisp of auburn hair under that severe white cap?” And before I could do anything he had whipped the cap from my head. To my mortification my hair tumbled over my shoulders. The prince’s eyes let up. “I was right.” He picked up a curl and toyed with it. “I have a distinct softness for red hair. Red heads are supposed to be fiery and passionate, aren’t they? Are you fiery and passionate?”

“No sir,” I mumbled. “I’m sure I’m a most quiet and well behaved young woman.”

He laughed, tugging on my hair. “That’s because you haven’t met the right man to wake you up yet. I bet you’ll be a little tiger one day.”

I could feel my cheeks burning, trying to think how I could possibly get away. But he had me pinned against the wall and one can hardly give the heir to the throne a good shove.  “Please sir, let me go,” I whispered. “I really should get back to the kitchen.”

“I’ll wager you have more talents than making scones,” he said.  His eyes were challenging me.

I could sense what he was hinting at, but I replied, “Perhaps I do, your highness. I am told I have a light hand with pastry”

This made him throw back his head and laugh heartily. “What a sweet innocent you are. I can’t wait to--I can’t wait to taste your pastry, young woman. Or experience your light hands. Why don’t you come and cook for me?

Oh dear--how do you say NO to the Prince of Wales. Unfortunately this is just one of the difficulties my heroine faces, including being accused of murder! It's all fun on the Riviera.
The book comes out next February and hopefully we will have a title by then. Suggestions gratefully received! 

What We're Writing: Rhys and Queen Victoria

RHYS BOWEN: I seem to be going back in time with my writing. After writing two stand-alone novels set in WWII, my next book, coming out this February, is called THE VICTORY GARDEN and is about the Women's Land Army in WWI.

However, my work in progress, actually only just started, is going to be about Queen Victoria and the time she spent in Nice. When I was staying in Nice a few years ago, actually writing Naughty in Nice, I was surprised to learn that Queen Victoria spent the winter there, during her latter years. I hadn't known this. An enormous hotel had been built for her--the Hotel Regina Excelsior. It stands on a hillside above the city with fabulous views. She took over a whole wing with a retinue of 100. She brought her own bedroom furniture and chefs on a private train from England.... however, she didn't want anyone to know she was the queen. (I think they might have guessed with a regiment of Highland pipers accompanying her). She told everyone to call her Lady Balmoral.

So the working title of my book is LADY BALMORAL'S CHEF. And it's about a young woman who cooks for the queen and there's a murder and a lot of intrigue.

This is how it begins:

Lady Balmoral’s Chef

Chapter 1

London, September 1897

If Helen Barton hadn’t stepped under an omnibus, I might well still be sweeping floors and lighting fires in that dreadful house in St. John’s Wood. But for once I had followed my father’s advice.

“Carpe diem,” was one of my father’s favorite sayings. Seize the day. Take your chances. He usually added ‘because that might be the only chance you get.”

He spoke from experience. He was an educated man, came from a good family, and had known better times. As a second son of the junior branch he could expect no title or property that went with it, and was sent out to India to make something of himself.  He had married my mother, a sweet and delicate creature he met on one of his visits home. It was soon clear that she couldn’t endure the harsh conditions of Bengal, so Daddy had been forced to bring her home to England.

Daddy had received no help from the family but at last had fallen on his feet in a way and had held what was considered a prestigious position: he was a receptionist and greeter at the Savoy, London’s new luxury hotel.  His ability to speak good French and know how to mingle with crowned heads had made him popular at the hotel. He had patted the hands of elderly Russian countesses and arranged roulette parties for dashing European princes, for which he received generous tips. We had lived quite happily in the small town of Hampstead, on the northern fringes of London. My sister and I attended a private school. We had a woman who came to clean and cook for us. It was not an extravagant life, but a pleasant one.

            Until it all came crashing down when the demon drink overcame my father. He worked at an establishment where the alcohol flowed freely among the guests. He was invited to take a glass and it would be rude to refuse. So who would notice if he finished off a bottle?  His visits to the public house became more frequent. And one day he was found drunk on the job. That meant instant dismissal. He tried in vain to find another position but with no reference no respectable establishment would want him. We watched him sink lower and lower into depression and drunkenness. My mother died around that time. She was a genteel and sweet person who adored my father. They said she died of pneumonia but I think it was of a broken heart.

            We moved to a squalid two room flat above a butcher’s shop, with only cold water and an outside lavatory. Father occasionally picked up work writing letters for the illiterate, tutoring in French, but nothing that kept the wolf far from the door. And so it was, just before my fifteenth birthday, that he announced he had found a position for me. I was to leave the school that I adored and to become a servant, so that I’d earn money to feed father and Louisa and someone else would have to feed and clothe me. I was more than shocked. I was mortified. We might not be rich but I was from a good family. And the house to which I was sent was that of a nouveau-riche man who had made money in the garment business. His factories turned out cheap blouses for working girls. He and his wife were loud-mouthed and common.

            I pleaded with my father not to do this.

            “It’s only for a short while, Bella,” he said, patting my hand. “I promise you as soon as I’m on my feet again I’ll bring you home. Until then you are helping to make sure that your little sister does not starve.”

            What could I say to that? He always was a great manipulator.

I'm dying to get on with it, but holiday shopping, decorating and parties keep intervening. However I shall enjoy spending time with Bella Waverly, Queen Victoria and a cast of naughty and nice characters. 

Queen Victoria and I explore Nice

RHYS BOWEN: Yesterday I talked about research for The Tuscan Child and today I'm going to share my initial research for a book I want to write next year that has to do with Queen Victoria and her time in Nice. Most people don't realize that, in her latter years, Queen Victoria spent her winters on the French Riviera. She tried several places: Cannes, Menton, Grasse, but finally settled on Nice.

The local inhabitants so appreciated the stature she brought to their town that they built an enormous new hotel for her. The Regina Excelsior. it stands on a hill, overlooking the town and the bay. The queen came here for four years in a row, bringing a retinue of 100, including Highland pipers, her bedroom furniture and a pony and trap and took over an entire wing of this hotel, including her own kitchen staff to cook for her.

It seemed too good not to write a story around this. I'm not going to tell you what the story is but I do want to share how I filled in the pieces for this story:

First I visited the area with the hotel, now luxury flats:

Then I browsed local used bookstores for books and photographs of the era. I found several brilliant books: one on the history of Cimiez (where she stayed), another on the British on the Riviera, one on the villas of Nice and their history. I found plenty of old postcards showing me the city in 1890 as well as the Carnival procession, the parade of flowers, which are destined to play a part in my story. The queen loved to throw flowers at handsome young men! I have so many good tidbits for my book already!

In the central library I found a really helpful librarian who hunted diligently and finally struck gold: The brochure published when the Regina Excelsior was opened. It had images of all the public rooms, the floor plans, the list of servants that the queen brought with her.. in fact everything I needed. Hooray for librarians (but it is lucky that I have a degree in French).

I rode a bus up to the waterfall which she loved to visit. So now I know the layout of the place where I want to set the story. All I have to do is to write it... but that has to wait until next year.

So dear Reds and Readers, how do you set about researching a setting for your books? Do you feel it's necessary that you have to visit the place in person?

And the winner of Dianne Freeman's book is RAMONA. Ramona, please email me at authorrhysbowen@gmail.com and I'll put you in touch with her.

Deanna Raybourn's Newest Novel, A CURIOUS BEGINNING

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: A CURIOUS BEGINNING is a fabulous read and I was so, so, so excited to interview Deanna Rayborn for its debut on September 1. Alas, a touch of pneumonia seems to have taken hold and I've been told I've been muttering things about Mr. Tumnis and the White Witch, along with Heffalumps and Woozles.... 

So, thank goodness mutual friends editor Blake Leyers and writer Ali Trotta have come to the rescue! (I definitely owe you ladies cocktails, and many of them....)

And welcome, Deanna — I wish you a rabble of butterflies (yes, I looked it up) for your book birthday!

DEANNA RAYBOURN: I’m so happy to be hanging out on Jungle Reds today talking about my newest release, A CURIOUS BEGINNING (Sept. 1), the first installment of a new mystery series featuring Victorian sleuth—and butterfly hunter—Veronica Speedwell! I thought I’d have some fun and ask a few pals, editor Blake Leyers and writer Ali Trotta, to pose a few questions about process, the new book, and writing in general. Because they know me so well, they asked some fabulous questions and I had a great time answering. Hope you enjoy too!

Blake’s Questions:

Veronica is the newest in a lien of bold main characters you’ve masterfully written. What characteristics do you feel are essential for a strong female character? 

The funny thing is that I don’t think of them as strong female characters. To me they’re just women the way I want to write them. They are doing interesting things; they have a strong sense of their own identity and what their place is in the world. Sometimes that self-awareness is challenged in the books, and sometimes the characters have to grow which can be painful and difficult. But they always end up in a better place than where they started and with a better understanding of what they want which I think is what we all want.

What do you do if you’re having difficulty pinning down [ha ha — I see what you're doing there —Ed.] with essence of a character? 

Panic. Then I take a deep breath and remind myself that I always manage to get there in the end. I like to have little touchstones, key things that remind me of significant qualities a character has. To that end, I make a collage for each project, pasting pictures of faces, settings, etc. onto a board about two feet by three. Then I hang that opposite my desk where I will always have it handy when I’m working. I also try to think about other sensory details: what perfume does a character wear? How do they laugh? I want to know what they would snack on, colors they prefer to wear, whether they are morning people or night owls. I find it’s always good to know their musical preferences. With my current main characters, he prefers sappy, quite sentimental music but she likes Beethoven because “that fellow really knew how to raise a roof.” Assembling all those details together is like arranging a mosaic. Each piece is nothing on its own, but when they’re put together the right way, they give you a complete picture.

Do you always know who the murderer is before you begin writing? 

Usually. Very rarely I will change it up, something I thought was deeply iconoclastic until I read that Agatha Christie used to do the same thing. Apparently she would write most of the book and then choose a murderer based upon who was least likely to have committed the crime. Then she would go back and fill in the details. I find that deeply fascinating, but I haven’t had the courage to try it yet. I have on occasion known someone was the murderer but not the motive until I neared the end of the book, and that’s always fun. By that point in the draft you know the character well enough to discard some obvious motivations, and others will suggest themselves, maybe things you might not have thought of at the beginning.

A CURIOUS BEGINNING is set in nineteenth-century England. How does visiting twenty-first-century England inform your fiction? 

The beauty of England is that it has retained so much of its history. I can write a character walking in Hyde Park 130 years ago and it’s going to be largely the same as walking in the park today. Sure, there are changes, but the plane trees are unchanged; the swans are unchanged. I just watched a documentary on Windsor Castle where the presenter was showing a room I had been standing in only the week before—and it looked precisely the same in Queen Victoria’s time. They had Fortnum & Mason and the Underground and the British Museum, so a Victorian transported to modern-day London wouldn’t find it entirely alien. Although they might be surprised by the Gherkin…

Ali’s Questions:

In general, what is the hardest part of the writing process for you? What is the easiest? 

Over the years it’s changed. It used to be that I would kill myself over the first draft and bang out 120,000+ words and then anguish over the cutting down. Now, I do the opposite; I write a solid first draft of about 80,000 words and really enjoy layering in the details in the open spaces I’ve left. It’s both more relaxing and more efficient. Learning to love revising was the single best thing I ever did for myself as a writer.

What role do names play in your upcoming A Curious Beginning? 

Names are hugely important to me. If I don’t have the proper name for a character, I just can’t seem to “get” them. In A Curious Beginning, my heroine is Veronica Speedwell, which is a botanical joke because “speedwell” is the common name for plants in the genus Veronica. I was researching herbs one day and ran across the two terms together and realized they would make a perfect heroine’s name, and as soon as I had the name, I jumped to making her a Victorian explorer. The name just conjures the image of the “petticoat and parasol” brigade of ladies who went traveling the world in the 19^th-century.

 A Curious Beginning involved a great deal of scientific research. It was often integral to the plot. What made you choose the protagonist’s profession? Did you consider any alternatives? 

Well, sometimes I don’t actually think things through…Veronica’s occupation as lepidopterist was suggested by the inspiration for her character—the irrepressible Margaret Fountaine. Margaret was a Victorian traveler and collector, chasing butterflies on six continents over the course of a decades-long career. She amassed a tremendous collection of butterflies—and men—and when I read her diaries, I knew I had to write a woman who had that same larger-than-life, dynamic personality. As a tribute to Margaret, and a good reason for Veronica’s world travel, I made her a lepidopterist without really thinking much about the science aspect of it. The fact that my lead male character, Stoker, is a natural historian and that their quarrels are often about things like reconciling competing theories of natural selection is a weird sort of bonus. I liked the idea of them being scientists, albeit with wildly different approaches. It gives them a kinship and a shared sense of the world. Of course, it also forces me to do a lot of research I wouldn’t ordinarily do! Ask me the difference between Lamarckian and Darwinian theories of evolution. No, really—ask. On second thought, don’t. 

If you could try your hand at any other genre, what would it be and why? 

Magical realism. I’ve had a contemporary magical realism book hanging out in a drawer for about ten years. It’s not good, and it would take a lot of work to make it good, but it’s a genre I adore. In spite of my love for mysteries—a very pragmatic sort of genre, in general—I have a weakness for magic. They’re like two halves of the same coin, sense and sensibility with apologies to Jane Austen.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Thank you, Deanna! 

(So, about the difference between Lamarckian and Darwinian theories of evolution.... Kidding, kidding....)

I'm absolutely enamored of Veronica — and don't even get me started on Stoker....  

This is that book, Reds and lovely readers, the one that gives you thrills, chills, all the good shivers. 

And Stoker... 

Oh, wait, where was I? Oh yes — I love Deanna's love of detail, right down to the perfume each character wears. Reds and lovely readers, what are your literary hero and heroine's favorite scents? (What you imagine the character would wear, if the author hasn't specified.) Maggie Hope's perfume is Après L'ondée — but at this point in the war, she's probably running a little low... 

Please tell us your thoughts in the comments.

(Also, Deanna, Blake, Ali and I pal around on Twitter almost daily, talking reading, writing, coffee, and more. Please drop by and say hello!)

About Deanna Raybourne:

A sixth-generation native Texan, New York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn grew up in San Antonio where she met her college sweetheart. She married him on her graduation day and went on to teach high school English and history. During summer vacation at the age of twenty-three, she wrote her first novel, and after three years as a teacher, Deanna left education to have a baby and pursue writing full-time. Fourteen years and many, many rejections after her first novel, she signed two three-book deals with MIRA Books.

Deanna’s debut novel, Silent in the Grave, published in January 2007. The first in the Silent series, the book introduces Lady Julia Grey, an aristocrat bent on investigating the mysterious death of her husband with the help of the enigmatic private enquiry agent Nicholas Brisbane. From the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to a Gypsy camp on Hampstead Heath, Silent in the Grave deftly captures the lush ambience of Victorian London.

The series continues with the second book, Silent in the Sanctuary (January 2008), a classic English country house murder mystery with a few twists and turns for Brisbane and Lady Julia along the way. Silent on the Moor (March 2009), set in a grim manor house on the Yorkshire moors, is the third adventure for Lady Julia and the mysterious Brisbane.

March 2010 saw a departure from the series with the release of The Dead Travel Fast, a mid-Victorian Gothic thriller that features novelist Theodora Lestrange as she leaves the safety and security of her Edinburgh home for the dark woods and haunted castles of Transylvania. Deanna turns once more to Lady Julia and her companions with Dark Road to Darjeeling (October 2010) which features an exotic setting in the foothills of the Himalayas and the introduction of an arch-villain. The fifth book in the series, The Dark Enquiry, follows the return of Lady Julia and Brisbane to London for their most puzzling adventure yet. The Dark Enquiry hit the New York Times Bestseller list the week before its official release in July 2011. The digital exclusive novella Silent Night, published in November 2012, is a bright Christmas adventure set in Julia’s ancestral home in the Sussex countryside.

Deanna’s next release, A Spear of Summer Grass (May 2013), chronicles the adventures of a scandalous flapper heroine in Africa and the lives she changes along the way. It is listed as one of Goodreads’ most highly anticipated books of 2013 and was preceded by Far in the Wilds, an exclusive digital prequel novella (March 2013). A Spear of Summer Grass received a starred review from Library Journal. Deanna carried on the theme of 1920s adventure with City of Jasmine (2014) and Night of a Thousand Stars (2014), but is delighted to return to Victorian London with the September 2015 hardcover release of A Curious Beginning, the first mystery featuring butterfly-hunting sleuth, Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian sidekick, Stoker.

Deanna’s novel Silent in the Grave won the 2008 RITA® Award for Novel with Strong Romantic Elements and the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First Mystery. The Lady Julia Grey series has been nominated for several other awards, including an Agatha, three Daphne du Mauriers, a Last Laugh, four additional RITAs, and two Dilys Winns. Dark Road to Darjeeling was also a finalist for the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Historical Mystery as well as a Romantic Reviews’ finalist for Best Book of 2010. In April 2015, the Lady Julia books were optioned for development as a television series in the UK by Free@Last TV.

You can find her blogging two days a week at www.deannaraybourn.com/blog and are welcome to friend and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

If you could be ANYONE for HALLOWEEN

JAN BROGAN: Time Magazine did a funny piece on the most popular Topical Halloween costumes for 2012, which included suggestions with tongue-in-cheek requirements to pull off the costumes.

Charlie Sheen and the Goddesses (cigarette perpetually hanging from your mouth, very little clothes -goddesses only - backwards Yankees cap - self-destructive tendencies. )

A pregnant Beyonce, unitard, babybump, black and white striped hat, Kate Middleton in wedding dress, Harold Cain with the pizza box, and Michele Bachman (you can resuse your 2008 suit from your Sarah Palin costume) and simply A Mormon (from the Broadway play and two of the three Republican candidates for president).

It got me to thinking. In real life, I'm not big on dressing up for Halloween, but in my dreams, if I didn't have to actually worry about procuring and/or paying for the costume, who would I want to be?

If I didn't have to worry about it being age-appropriate, I'd go with Lady Gaga, just because she has the most outlandish outfits. But since I DO have to worry about being age appropropriate, I think I'll go with Anne Boleyn. For one thing, I've always wanted to wear one of those velvet dresses with the bodices, for another, my husband could

go as Henry VIII OR the executioner with the fancy ax from France.

Okay Reds: If cost and the ability to actually put the outfit together were not an issue: WHO WOULD YOU BE FOR HALLOWEEN, and why?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: We're not doing anything wildly creative this year. I'm in charge of costumes and Bruce is a good sport so in the recent past he's been Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, Diego Rivera and Amelia Earhart's publisher husband whose name I never remember. This year he is Rick Grimes, the survivor cop from The Walking Dead and I will either be a zombie or Rick's wife - depending on how thin I feel that day.

If we were going high concept we'd go as Steve Jobs and an apple.

JAN: I can t BELIEVE TIME MAGAZINE didn't think of that. They should make you EDITOR.

HALLIE EPHRON: This is hard. The bride of Frankenstein would be fun. Or Neytiri from Avatar. If I get her body, too, then I'll go as Katy Perry (Is there enough money in the world to make that happen??)

JAN: Katy Perry, who looks remarkably like Boop, don't you think? All you need is the big round eyes....

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: OOh. Jonathan and I went as the Arks one year, Joan and Noah. The next year, I ran out of ideas, so I stayed in my aluminum foil chain mail, but changed my fleur de lys to an Arkansas flag, put on a cowboy hat, and went as Joan of Arkansas. Jonathan was Noah of Arkansas, which makes no sense at all, but it was pretty funny.

I'd LOVE us to be Nick and Nora Charles. I'd have to crimp my hair, and get an Asta, but the dress could be great. And Jonathan would be very comfortable with a martini.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hank, when you and Jonathan attended the Red and Black Ball at last year's Crime Bake, you absolutely looked like Nick and Nora - if they had been turned into vampires.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Agatha Christie. Frumpy would pose no problem. But I'd steal Nick and Nora Charles from Hank, except Rick would never dress up for Halloween. I, however, would look with a martini in my hand. Sans olive.

JAN: Yeah, I liking the Nick and Nora thing, too. She had fabulous satin dresses. And Debs, now I want a martini in my hand, too. (But I don't think Anne Boleyn drank them.)

RHYS BOWEN: I'd like Kate Middleton's wedding dress if I could lose six dress sizes overnight! Since I didn't grow up with Halloween I missed out on being princess, fairy etc. I was a mermaid one year--hard to walk. One year when John had a black beard we went as the devil and a fallen angel (black angel costume) and we got lost on the way to the party. John wound down the window to ask directions from a group of teenagers. He was in tuxedo but had upswept eyebrows and red horns growing out of his hair. One kid started to give directions then noticed. "You've got horns," he said in a shaky voice. "I am the devil," John replied in scary English voice as we drove away.

JULIA: And that kid spent the next year in therapy. I bet to this day, he can't watch any programming originating from the UK. Which (note this suave redirection to the topic) is where I'd get my dream costume from. If I could get my Halloween wish, the producers of DOWNTON ABBEY would open their costume room for me and let me run amok. I adore that late-Edwardian look - high necklines, sweeping bodices, all those exquisite dressmaker details. When I was younger, I actually went once as a Gibson Girl. Now that I'm silver-haired and, shall we say, more comfortably padded, I think I'd make a very imposing Dowager.

Or we could move it back a couple of decades: I could be the widowed Queen Victoria, and Ross could be my Highland "servant," John Brown.

JAN: Some interesting choices here - and we won't get all analytical about what they might mean -- so come on, tell us. WHO WOULD YOU BE?

Choosing an Identity

RHYS: When I'm working at the computer I'm often struck by strange phrases--like the words "Unknown Zone" before it finds a website. Doesn't that sound like a good sci-fi title. She was lost in the unknown zone (which I often am, not being the most computer savvy person in the world).When I'm saving files to an online vault it shows the words "reticulating splines." I have to believe these words are made up just to impress people. Nobody has been able to explain to me what they mean.

And now we come to my favorite. When I post a comment on Blogger it says, "Choose an identity."What an offer. I can be who I like? So who do I want to be today? Queen Elizabeth the First or Queen Victoria, and boss everybody around? That probably wouldn't work because there's only John here and he isn't very easily bossable.A great opera star, about to sing the last act of La Traviata and know there won't be a dry eye in the house?Agatha Christie? William Shakespeare? How about Dan Brown, on the way to the bank?

So joking aside, if a genie came out of a bottle and I could really be anybody I wanted to be, who would I choose? It's a choice fraught with danger and twists of fate, of course. I could choose to be a lady in the Middle Ages only to find it is the day before the Black Death arrives in town. I could choose to be a Roman senator only to find that Nero is about to fiddle while Rome burns.I'm not sure I would like to go back in history for anything more than a visit, Connie Willis style. And even her historians always get more than they bargained for.

I don't have a need to be super rich. Or super famous. Both come with a heavy price tag. I must say I have fantasized about being a great athlete. I was a sickly child and useless at sports until I turned about twelve. Then, as i grew healthier I decided I wanted to be good at tennis. I can't tell you how many hours I thumped a ball against a wall. I never quite made the school tennis team but I kept on practicing and ended up playing for my college. And I actually got better as an adult, as I learned to control nerves and focus and use strategy. I could beat my son-in-law ( a hunky six foot four) until I had to give up the game a couple of years ago with some damaged disks in my neck.So yes, I'd love to be a top tennis player, walking out onto the center court at Wimbledon. Or a top skier, or ice skater. It must feel amazing to know that you are the best at something in the world.So next time you see a post on Blogger from Serena Williams, it's probably me.

And what identity would you choose, Jungle Red Sisters?

JAN: I think I'd chose Anna Quindlan. I always thought I should have ended up first at the New York Times, then as a best selling author, then as a columnist for TIme, is it?? Or Newsweek. And if I can't be Anna Quindlan, I'll be Faith Hill.

HALLIE: Fascinating question. And rather than who I want to BE, here's who I wish I could be FOR A DAY. Agatha Christie the day she typed THE END on Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Helen Keller in mid-life on a day when she was writing her book. Jane Goodall on a good day with her beloved gorillas. Billie Jean King on the day she defeated Bobby Riggs.

HANK: Marie Curie. Shakespeare, whoever he was, writing Henry V. Meryl Streep. Ameila Earhart, up to a point, of course. To have been brave enough to be Christa MacAuliffe. Oh, yes, Rhys, just for a brief icy moment, Nancy Kerrigan. Or Cynthia Gregory. Or Linda Ronstadt. I'm sure they would have all lusted to be someone else, too. Which is interesting.

ROBERTA: Meryl Streep, yeah that's a good one. And icon and my idol. But in the writing department, how about Kathryn Stockett who wrote THE HELP as her first novel. Not only a huge bestseller, but critically well-received too! I don't even need to BE her, I just want a successful book like that one! By the way, I haven't read it yet, but it's very close to the top of my TBR pile.

RHYS: Oh, I have to agree with Meryl Streep. What a fun life she has had, able to show her stuff in such a variety of acting roles, equally good at comedy and drama. I'd actually rather have her as a friend because I can see she likes to laugh a lot. And I agree with Hallie too. To be someone else, but only for a day. Much as I grit my teeth when a mediocre book hits the NYT list and I don't, I think I'd still rather be me.

RO: Most of the time when I have this fantasy I just want to be me younger but let's see..for a day...lots of people. Living - Clint Eastwood, Roger Federer, Julia Roberts, Keira Knightley. Dead - Gertrude Bell, Lillie Langtry, Karen Blixen, Pamela Harriman, Mata Hari, Cleopatra,...Eve. I said there were a lot..

RHYS: I guess that's why we became writers, so that we could play at being other people every day. I certainly enjoy spending time in Molly Murphy's world and even more so in the glittering environment of Her Royal Spyness. So do non-writers fantasize about being other people as much?

RHYS: Eve--now that's an interesting one. What if Adam was boring and droned on about his fig leaf collection? I think I'll stick to Queen Elizabeth the first or Queen Victioria!