When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.

The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine.

One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.

I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by.

The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.