Lindsey Davis has had a long and celebrated career as the creator of the Falco and Flavia Albia mysteries set in ancient Rome. But when she started out, publishers weren’t interested in the period. Nobody, they told her, wanted to read about ancient Rome. She persevered, brought ancient Rome to life, and created a whole new sub-genre in popular fiction with lots of authors following in her footsteps. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Lindsey talks about her remarkable series – first with 20 Marcus Didius Falco books and now 8 books in a follow-up series with a female investigator, Flavia Albia. We’ve got the latest in the series, three eBook copies of The Grove of the Caesars, featuring a serial killer, yes, they did have serial killers in those days, to give away to three lucky readers. Enter the draw on The Joys of Binge Reading website, or on our Binge Reading Facebook Page. Draw closes August 22 so enter now! ENTER TO WIN Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Lindsey's early and difficult apprenticeshipBreaking through with Ancient Rome mysteriesHow going to Italy was part of her first contractWhy its hard to 'sell' readers on the English Civil WarThe one thing she'd do differentlyThe Emperor's love affair that became her first book Where to find Lindsey Davis: Website: http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lindseydavisauthor/ Contact: http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/contact-me/ What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Introducing Lindsey Davis author Jenny Wheeler: Hello there, Lindsey, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Ancient Rome Mysteries from Lindsey Davis Lindsey Davis: Thank you very much. I'm really pleased that you've asked me. It's lovely to have contact with New Zealand. Jenny Wheeler: You're sitting in Birmingham. Lindsey Davis: Birmingham, in England. Yes, the real Birmingham, the first Birmingham. Jenny Wheeler: You've had a long and celebrated career as an author, but people always like to know where you got started. You had 13 years as a civil servant before you started with your writing, didn't you? Lindsey Davis: I did. I think it's important. I think you need to have another job. Although some people do go straight into writing, I think like teachers and vicars are always better if they've done a different job first, the same goes for writers because you have to know what it's like to wake up in the dark and think you've got to go out on public transport to some terrible office to do a job that you hate. If you're going to impose something like that on your characters, it's simply a matter of experience and you have to gather information about life, so you might as well have a real job while you're doing it. Lindsey's Civil War saga Jenny Wheeler: You've got a great backlist of mysteries set in ancient Rome, twenty in the Falco series and now you've just published the eighth Flavia Albia book, The Grove of the Caesars. Why did you migrate from Birmingham to ancient Rome? Lindsey Davis: It was via the English Civil War because when I was about 14, I wanted to write a novel about my hometown. The most exciting thing I knew of what had happened there was Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the dastard, but handsome,
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