Show notes
Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness mystery series about a penniless English lady who’s 34th in line to the British throne is well-placed for a surge in popularity with Meghan Markle’s marriage to Prince Harry. But this versatile author is not resting on her laurels.
Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Rhys talks about her latest hot selling World War II novels and the one thing she’s done that’s helped make her a multi-award winning author.
Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
The inside story on being related to royalty
Why ‘cozy’ mysteries are under-rated
Why she’s drawn to World War II in recent work
Emulating Harry Potter in a fun children’s series
The writers she admires most
The one thing she’d done that’s made her success
Where to find Rhys Bowen:
Website: http://rhysbowen.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RhysBowenAuthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhysbowen
What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.
Jenny: But now, here’s Rhys . Hello there Rhys and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.
Rhys: Thank you very much, it’s lovely chatting all the way to New Zealand.
Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon A Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? And if there was a catalyst for this, what was it?
Rhys Bowen – Popular mysteries
Rhys: Well if there was, I can’t remember it, because apparently my mother says that I started writing when I was four.
Since then, I’ve made up stories for myself, I’ve told stories to my brother. In my teens I really wanted to be a movie star, so I wrote scripts for myself in which I was always the tragic heroine and everybody cried at the end.
So I’ve always written all my life. It never occurred to me that would be my profession; it was just part of me, something I did. I made up stories. When I found I was actually writing books and people were paying me for them, it was a huge bonus.
Jenny: Oh that’s wonderful! I gather you did start out by doing a script at the BBC?
Rhys: Yes. Right after college, I went into the BBC as a trainee, and I soon found myself in the Drama department. I was working in radio drama, which was huge in those days. Unfortunately it’s dying out now, but we had several original plays per week as well as serials, and adaptations of other plays. I found myself working on a play and thinking- if I’d written that, I don’t think I would have ended it that way.
So I had an idea for a play, and wrote it, walked down the hall to the head of drama with it and said “I’ve just written this play”. About three days later, he called me in and he said “we really like this, we’re going to do it”.
So that was my introduction to being a professional writer! I think working with plays to start with is a great training ground if you’re going to write fiction later, because with a play it’s very important to introduce the characters, work out how they get on and how they get off the scene; how they convey their personality through their words. So it’s been a good training ground.
Jenny: Have you done quite a few scripts?
Rhys: Not many. I probably did four or five and then not for many years. When a movie company wanted to do Her Royal Spyness, they said “would you like to write the script?” I said no. It’s a different world, and I’m not in it anymore. So I’d much rather have someone who knew about scripts compose it.
Jenny: Has that actually made the screens yet?
Rhys: No, an English movie company bought it and was going gang busters with it and then the producer who’d actually been the one who was keen on it went to another company. So it died a natural death unfortunately. This happens all the time. They had paid me a nice lot of money for it, so I’m not actually complaining too much!
Jenny: Your Royal Spyness series is reaching into its twelfth book in August – a very witty series it is too, based on the perils and pleasures of the penniless Lady Georgie, cousin of King George Vth, 34th in line to the throne, set in the 1930s. Are you enjoying a boost in sales with Meghan marrying Prince Harry?
Rhys: It will be interesting to see that won’t it! Just by pure coincidence the new book that comes out in that series – which is the twelfth book in the series- is called Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding. It has a lovely picture of the bride on the cover, so I think a royal wedding can tie in very nicely to that.
Jenny: Was that planned that way, or just sheer luck?
Rhys: Just sheer luck. By the time I’d written the book, and while I was writing the book, we had no idea that Harry and Meghan were going to get married. So the timing has been very good.
What my publisher has done is printed these lovely wedding invitations to send out to everybody, and also it’s told the book stores where I’m going to be on my tour so they can buy in cake and champagne for each of the tour stops. It’s going to be a lot of fun!
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
Jenny: Oh it sounds fantastic actually, what a great way to launch! There is a very vague mention of you having married into a similarly distant royal line . . are you able to enlighten us any further on that tantalising detail? Some of the books have quite an insider sense about them . . .
Rhys: Well I’m not nearly as in line to the throne as Lady Georgie. My husband’s family is one of the very old English families; they actually go back to 800, they can trace it back. If you go back on both sides, his mother’s name was Bede-Cox and that family goes right back in direct line to Edward III and the Plantagenets.
But on his father’s side, his grandmother was Hammond – she was linked to Earl of Somerset who was Queen Jane Seymour’s brother. His daughter married William Barfoot Hammond, and that was on that line too so there’s a tenuous royal link on both sides.
Sutton Place – all in the family
But the family until very recently owned several stately homes, and his grandmother was born at Sutton Place, which is an absolutely gorgeous house, and was bought later by J Paul Getty. His sister still lives in a beautiful 14th century manor house, so when we go to England, I do play with that life a bit . ..
I sit with people who have silly nicknames. We have one cousin who is on my sister’s estate. Her name is Puff, but she’s really Lady Virginia. So all that sort of thing is kind of fun, especially when it’s not part of your normal life, when I’m there and very much the observer.
I think the things they say – they say these things and they don’t realise what they’re saying- they sort of say “do you remember that joke we played on the butler that time”, and I write it down quickly!
The funny thing is that they all have this great sense of entitlement – God created the upper class, and then he rested. I sat at a sherry party in the Cotswolds and the person who was giving the party said “my dears, do you know who’s bought that house across the valley?” and everybody said “oh no, do tell”. And she said, “my dears, he’s a grocer”.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d owned Safeway; to them he was still a grocer, and therefore not one of us. It’s kind of fascinating to me, because I live in America where everything is very egalitarian and you are what you make yourself. To be in a society where it’s assumed you’re somehow on a different rank because you’re born in a different rank – it’s rather interesting.
Frightfully Secret – Rhys Bowen series
Jenny: Yes, and that background certainly does explain why there is a sense of an insider with those stories. With the Royal Spyness series, there is a sense that you do understand how that world works, so that’s great. And then there is the Molly Murphy cozy mystery series – 17 books and more Agatha and Anthony Awards – about an Irish lass working as a detective in early 20th century New York. She comes from the other side of the tracks. doesn’t she?
Rhys: Yes, Molly Murphy is about as poor and humble as you could possibly get. She came about because I went to Ellis Island in Manhatten. I hadn’t planned to write a book or anything, I just had a free afternoon in New York so I hopped on the sightseeing boat and went to Ellis Island. I was completely unprepared for the overwhelming emotion I felt there.
I have no ancestors who came in that way, but I stood there just feeling the walls crying out to me saying we’ve got such stories to tell! This is a place of great joy and great sorrow. And then standing there – you stand on Ellis Island and you look across the Manhattan skyline and you realise that people could have been that close to America but never allowed to take that final step because they were never allowed to be admitted.
I thought to myself – this is really the ultimate mystery. So I thought; who would I like to send here? Then I thought, well I know the Irish very well. My husband’s family is part Irish and linked to the the Earl of Dunraven – Irish aristocracy. Half of my family is Welsh, so Molly became the young Irish woman who has to flee for her life.
Molly Murphy – Rhys Bowen series
Jenny: Yes, I love the set up where she goes to America under a false name because she faced great danger in Ireland, and then immediately gets herself into a situation where she might be faced with deportation. It’s a great way to launch a series. And they got to 17 books- are you still writing Molly Murphy now?
Rhys: I’ve said I’ve put her on hiatus. I won’t say that I’m done with her, because I’m sure I’ve got more stories to tell. The big problem is, Molly is now married, she has a child and you have to ask yourself – if I was responsible for a young child, when would I put myself in harm’s way? And under what circumstances would I do anything like that?
So it becomes more of a challenge to think of instances when she actually would go out and investigate or else help someone else with investigations.
I probably will come back to her at least in a novella or short story. The nice thing is that I’m writing some stand alones that are very different from each other, and I have the chance to pretty much write what I want to. I love my series; series are great because you build up a fan base, and those fans really look forward to the next books in the series.
They know all the characters, they all say they love Georgie and Queenie – they look forward to going back into that world again, and I do too when I write it. But having the chance to write things that are not part of that world; that’s a huge gift as well.
Jenny: That’s a great way to introduce your new books – two terrific “stand alones” – but still “kind of” a series – because they are both World War II novels – In Farleigh Field and The Tuscan Child. These are also winning awards . . . … What made you move on into this period and setting . .?
In Farleigh Field – Rhys Bowen
Rhys: Well, I think I’ve always been fascinated with World War II because I was born towards the end of it. I don’t remember anything except sirens. I do remember sirens. My whole family was touched by it for years- my father came back, various uncles came back. We were still rationing until 1953, so I grew up with rationing.
Everywhere you walked in London at least, there would be bomb sites and those weren’t really cleared until the late 1950s or early 1960s. So we were very conscious of the war and what had happened. Then I came to realise, it was the last time you had a clear sense of good versus evil.
Any war or any confrontation we’ve had since then has been colored with grey; Vietnam, Iraq, we’ve had the questioning of whether or not we’re doing the right thing. Whereas World War II, everybody knew we must stop evil before it swallows the world.
Everybody was prepared to do their part however small it was, and everybody had that great sense of purpose and togetherness. So it’s a great time to write about because of the heightened emotions and fears, bombings and starvation – all these things add to any sort of emotion in a story.
Then I was surprised when I found out – I’m writing the Royal Spyness series and I’ve read an awful lot on King Edward VIII who later became the Duke of Windsor – and then I read that he was a huge fan of Hitler, and that Hitler was planning to use him as a puppet King.
That’s why they sent him off to the Bahamas, because the Bahamas is just off the coast of America and they could obviously control very well the submarines and keep him safe. But no, Hitler would have liked to put him as a puppet King in England.
And then I read that there was a whole group of aristocrats who wanted to aid Germany. They were pro- German, and they felt that Germany and England had a lot in common. But their aims in many ways were altruistic. They thought England couldn’t possibly win, and they thought that if they stopped the war now, and stopped an invasion, that Britain would be safe and Hitler would be nice to Britain, and that all of the beautiful monuments would no longer be bombed, because at that point Hitler was bombing cathedrals and every sort of lovely old monument.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor with Adolf Hitler
So the fact about the secret ring of aristocrats immediately made me think that there was a story there! So that’s how I started off writing In Farleigh Fields.
Jenny: Yes, and it sounds like there’s plenty there for a backstory. Is there a third one coming in World War II?
Rhys: I’ve just finished the first drafts of next year’s book, and it’s set in World War I. I just felt that I wanted to go and explore something else.
So this is exploring the Women’s Land Army in World War I, and these were young women who had worn corsets until then and had their hair up in a big bun. They had never done any sort of manual work, and suddenly they go and work in the field! They have their hair cut, and take their corsets off and wear bloomers.
They plant the crops and manage the ploughs, just to keep the country fed. That seemed like a fun thing to write about, and also the whole theme of the book is women banding together. As you know in World War I, a whole generation of young men did not come back to England.
World War I poster
If you were a young woman at that age, your chances of marrying were one in ten. So I thought to myself – what happens if you get a small community and none of the men are coming back? You’re going to have no blacksmith, no carpenter, no postman, no man who owns the pub. What do the women do?
How do they band together and say, okay how can we make this work? So that’s part of the background of what this story is about. It’s also about one woman’s tragedy, loss and healing through finding a garden full of herbs that she uses as a healing garden. I can’t tell you the title – I want to call it the The Healing Garden, but my publisher isn’t so thrilled with that so it might be something else. It’s all very early stages!
Jenny: I must say, I hadn’t realised there was a Women’s Land Army in World War I, I don’t think. I was familiar with World War II, but yes, it’s fascinating.
Rhys: It started in about 1917. It was when it got to a stage where they realised the country would starve because there was no one to plant the crops or harvest the crops. So they put out flyers for young women to come and help.
They were a very mixed bag – you had some who were servants who would never go back into service again, there were some who were daughters of those who worked on the land, there were widows who said they didn’t want to sit at home all by themselves grieving I want to do something positive. And then there is a heroine in the book who’s an upper class young girl who leaves her family because they won’t accept the young man she wants to marry. So she goes and works in the Land Army. They’re a very mixed bag, but they became very sisterly- a great band of sisters.
Jenny: And returning to your roots in children’s stories, you are also writing the Red Dragon Academy series with your daughter Claire Broyles – a middle school grade fantasy series. How was this birthed?
Rhys: Claire and I were up in a cabin in the snow once, and we were talking about how much we missed Harry Potter. We started talking about how I’d like to start a series set in Wales, because obviously it’s where my mother’s family comes from.
Caernarvon Castle – Wales
I had taken to Claire to see Conway Castle and Caernarvon Castle and we said wouldn’t it be interesting if there was a parallel universe there! We started talking about it, and realised that we had a story! The big problem is we’re both so busy; we’d done that first book, we have a second book planned and we have never found the time to write it.
She’s incredibly busy doing about four jobs, as well as having children and I’m writing two books a year and last year did three books and said never again. I don’t know when we’ll get back to it which is such a shame, because we had so much fun doing the first one.
We would take parts and she’d say “Well I’d like to handle the scene that takes place in such and such”, and then I’d go ahead and we’d swap scenes and actually when I read it now, I can’t tell which bits were hers and which were mine; it worked very well!
Giving Harry Potter some competition
Moving to a more general focus, away from specific books to your wider career
Jenny: Is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that’s been the secret to your success?
Rhys: Well I suppose if I could look at one thing, I would say I’ve tried to make each book better than the last one. If you write a series, the publisher is very happy if you turn in the same book over and over.
But each time, I’ve tried to make it a better book. I’ve tried to stretch the limits and to do something that’s outside of the box a bit with each book. So I think that’s something that I’m proud of. I do get lots of reviews that say this is your best book yet each time, and I think that’s nice to know that I am still raising the bar each time.
Jenny: I guess it keeps it interesting for you as well, doesn’t it?
Rhys: Oh yes. I could turn out a Royal Spyness book in which something happens and she goes to met the Queen and then there’s a body. I could do that every single time, and it would be quite amusing. But I like to send her to different places, I like to tackle things that are slightly difficult.
The last books in the Royal Spyness series we’ve had a friend Belinda who has become pregnant, and has had to decide whether to have an abortion or not. It’s things that would have really affected young girls at that time.
Jenny: Later this month you are holding a writing workshop in Tuscany – which sounds marvellous and I think is the second time you’ve done this. Tell us a little about it and how it came about.
Rhys: That came about just over two years ago. Two professors from Arizona State University who run the Summer Programme in Italy came to me and said, “we were wondering if you possibly might have time to teach us a writing workshop in a lovely old farmhouse now turned into a hotel in Chianti in Tuscany”.
It had a swimming pool and beautiful grounds, and of course it had lovely meals and we would go wine tasting and on lovely tours. They asked me if I would possibly have time to do this. Of course I had the time! So I did it, and it really was lovely.
The last group bonded well, and we had a lovely time together. I’m going back in two weeks, and this time it’ll be interesting. Last time it was all women, and this time there are three men signed up as well.
One of them is coming from Singapore or Hong Kong I think, so we’re from all over, and both men and women will make it a different dynamic. It should be a lot of fun, and it really is a beautiful setting. It’s an old farmhouse, so you still have the big brick oven where they used to bake the bread. The rooms have very nice modern bathrooms and a swimming pool. There’s a little town just outside where we walk for some of our special dinners, so it really is very nice.
The Tuscan Child – Rhys Bowen
Jenny: And the writing tuition – is it focused on the mystery genre?
Rhys: It was last time. I think this time I called it Novel in a Week which is rather an ambitious thing to call it, but I wanted people who had always wanted to write a novel or people who got started on a novel and then floundered and thought “I don’t know where to go now”.
At the end of the ten day course, hopefully these people can go home and say “I really can tackle this, because I know where I’m going”. So that’s what I want to do. And if they’re all in the mystery genre, we will focus more on mysteries, and if not we will focus on the novel.
Because essentially, every novel that you write is a mystery – you want to know what will happen next. So I’m looking forward to it a lot. And you asked about the Tuscan Child which is the book I’ve just written this year, which incidentally is coming up to seeing sales of 200,000 copies so far, so that’s pretty nice too.
I knew I wanted to write that the last time I’d been there- I’d been to Tuscany before and I thought it would be fun to set a book in two time periods, two stories running parallel. I knew when I was in Tuscany that I was going to be an observer. Everywhere I went I thought: how do you make this pasta, what ingredients are in this sauce, what’s that smell like, and what’s blooming on that fence? All these things I was making notes on all the time, because I knew I wanted them in a book, so it was very helpful.
Jenny: No lesser writer than Louise Penny has described you as “one of the best fiction writers of the day.” It must have left a little glow in your heart when you read that. Do you think critics perhaps underestimate the sort of humorous mysteries you write – you make it seem so effortless…
Rhys: Well first of all, Louise Penny is very kind; she’s actually a very close friend of mine. In fact I’m going to be seeing her in about 10 days in England, and we’re going to have fun there before I go to Italy.
I think you’re quite right- the cosier mystery has never been taken seriously. In Fairleigh Field was nominated for an Edgar this year, which was really wonderful because the Edgars are normally all men and all very dark. For some reason, people seem to think that the darker something is, the more valuable and the more literary it is.
I don’t understand that, because what I’ve always felt what Agatha Christie said which was “you expect to find evil and violence in the backstreets of a city, but when something rocks the foundations of a small community, then everybody’s values are shaken to their core. It’s something really horrible and unexpected that someone within a community in a small village could be violent, and could be a killer. So I think our books are much more valid and true to real life in many ways.
Turning to Rhys as reader
Jenny: The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to read series . . . .So – turning to your taste in fiction who do you “binge read” ?
Rhys: Oh my goodness… if you saw the stacks of my “to be read” piles in the house! The strange thing is that the ones I’m going to tell you are all close friends of mine. Obviously Louise Penny– I think her books are magnificent. I’m up to date, and I’ve just gone back and started re-reading Still Life the other day because I couldn’t quite remember all the details.
Louise Penny – Still Life – Book One
When you look at her, we were talking about people not taking cosy mysteries as seriously; she’s one who writes about a small town in Quebec full of quirky people, a village green and a little bistro, a woman with a duck. She writes about all these quirky, cosy things and yet she debuts number one on the New York Times every time which says something about the average reader wants a place where they feel safe.
And that’s what Three Pines does. Her books always deal with moral greyness as opposed to awful villains; everyone in her books, from the villain to the hero, you can see real people in them. I think that’s why they’re so popular.
So Louise is one, and another one who’s a close friend of mine is Deborah Crombie. I love her series, I’ve followed it since the beginning. Actually, I’ve followed it way before I knew her, and then when I met her that was an added bonus!
She has Inspector Kincaid and Gemma James in London, and they’re police procedurals but they have a lot of character and moral ambiguity in them.
And then a third friend of mine, who I really have to read all the time and who writes fairly similarly to mine is Jacqueline Winspear. Her Maisie Dobbs series are set in the 1930s – a woman detective in the 1930s who still bares the scars of World War I. I find those books fascinating.
Jenny: That sounds wonderful.
Circling back to the end
Jenny: At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything?
Rhys: Well I certainly wouldn’t change where I am now. If you think, my first book in mysteries which was Evans Above had a print run of 2500, and was probably put in a few libraries and that was it, really without much publisher backing or help.
I have come to this stage where I’ve won 18 awards to date, and I sell an awful lot of books. So it’s a very satisfying place to be.
Constable Evans series – Rhys Bowen
One thing I would change I think, is the titles of the Constable Evans series. they all had very clever pun titles, Evans Above, Evanly Choirs, and so forth, and they started pretty cosy. But as the series went on, there were more difficult subjects.
I had one of the books where there was a Pakistani family and a terrorism threat and things, and another book in which there was a woman in a women’s shelter. I think by having those very clever, “punny” titles, I probably kept away a lot of serious readers who might have read the books, and maybe some of the people who picked them up with the punny title said “well this isn’t funny and light, it’s rather dark and serious”. So I don’t think I did the stories a real service by having those titles.
Jenny: Sure, yes. What is next for Rhys as writer? New projects under development?
Rhys: I’ve got to start as soon as I come back from the Tuscany trip, I’ve got to start writing the next Royal Spyness. Obviously the one before is called Four Funerals and Maybe A Wedding, so we ought to hope there’s a wedding at the end of that book!
And so I’m already planning ahead to the honeymoon in the next book. I asked readers on my Facebook page where they thought they should go for their honeymoon, and I had suggestions for literally everywhere in the world- including places like Bhutan.
I’m not going to take them to Bhutan, because I haven’t been there and I’d have to go and do research. So I’m thinking of taking them to Kenya to the Happy Valley where this community of aristocratic upper class English people who lived this very naughty life ; drugs, sex and everything. I thought it would be rather fun to put Georgie in the middle of that – Georgie who’s so innocent and lives such a sheltered life.Who’ll think what on earth is going on, why are people changing bedrooms all the time! I think it’s going to be quite a fun book!
Happy Valley – Georgie’s honeymoon destination
Jenny: Do you always like to go to the places you’re writing about?
Rhys: I do. Kenya would be the exception, because I’ve wanted to go on a safari for a long time but I haven’t managed to do it yet.
I’ve been reading a lot of background books about this Happy Valley set, and I have the movie Out of Africa which I shall watch 300 times! It isn’t hard because it’s got Robert Redford in it!
The one thing you don’t get when you don’t go yourself is all those little details. When I’m in Tuscany, I’m always observing what things smell like, what’s that bird that’s sitting on the fence there, how does it sound when the men are arguing in the town square and their voices echo back. It’s all those things that can really bring a place to life. I’ll just have to do my best this time. But you know, Georgie and Darcy are on their honeymoon; perhaps they won’t notice the scenery too much!
Jenny: Where can readers find you on line? You sound like an extrovert, do you like to interact with your readers?
Rhys: Oh yes I do, and I’m a total extrovert. If I’m on my own for more than a couple of days I start talking to the grocery clerk. I have a website, and that’s obviously www.rhysbowen.com. You can find me on Facebook which is www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor, and I’m on Twitter @rhysbowen and I’m part of a wonderful group blog- there are are eight of us. It’s Jungle Red Writers- jungleredwriters.com.
There’s eight of us who are all fairly well known writers- myself, Deborah Crombie, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Hallie Ephron, Jenn McKinlay, Lucy Burdette and Ingrid Thoft. We take turns to host the blog and talk about anything from our grandmothers’ recipes to problems we’re having writing our next book, and we host guests.
Jungle Red Blog writers
So it’s a very lively blog to be on, because it’s something different each day. I really enjoy ding that. because it’s like having a group of sisters we chat with everyday.
Jenny: Well look it’s been great talking – we have pretty well run out of time. It has been wonderful talking, and if you have another Italian workshop, maybe I’ll get there next year!
Rhys: Oh yes, wouldn’t that be lovely! Last year they did have someone from Australia, but you’re a little bit closer than Australia I think?
Jenny: Yes, that’s right! That’s lovely Rhys, it’s been a pleasure talking to you and we’ll watch your coming career with interest.
Rhys: Thank you very much Jenny.
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