Adelaide Jensen

Can you explain the sigil marked?

I feel like my brain is so bad at formulating images of people.

And then I'm like, oh, that's what they look like.

That's amazing.

It's why it's useful when there's like movies of things because you're like, now the picture in my mind is so perfect.

Were you always fascinated by ancient history and especially Roman history?

Yeah, that idea pulled me in immediately when literally just like the pitch line was like Roman gladiators, vampire diaries.

I was like, was this book made for me?

Standing in the Coliseum is such a powerful moment and I loved how you worked in there all the really interesting technology about like the animals and everything underneath because that was amazing.

Oh, it's crazy.

It's crazy.

And all the real science like behind how they, you know, they flooded the Coliseum and you must have had so much fun pulling that in.

Nobody fact-checked me.

I've forgotten everything from my hand.

But yeah, the visual was amazing.

How did you choose which other bits of Roman history to pull in to be like not too overwhelming in the world building, but keep like those little Easter eggs almost of the society?

It just works, yeah.

Was the emperor in the book based on any of the real emperors?

Yes.

I mean, the characters were amazing.