Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer -- Behind the Scenes!

Five random facts about writing the book

I can't believe that Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer is out today! To celebrate, here are five (slightly silly) factoids about writing the book.

(1) I wanted to go to Paris for years, but I never did it. And then this book came up, and I thought, "VOILA! The perfect excuse!" So I went to Paris. But I couldn't eat the cheese or drink the wine, because I was pregnant. So now I have to go back. (I did eat a LOT of chocolate.)

(2) Then, during revisions, my editor kept saying, "Describe the food in more detail -- what did the bread smell like? What did the cheese taste like? Talk about the chocolate!" The tragic part of this is that during these revisions, I was on a super-restricted diet because my baby had food allergies. So all the time I was writing about the cheese and bread and chocolate, I was sitting at home eating air sandwiches. I was SO JEALOUS of my characters.

(3) In the book, Colette finds a room full of cornflower decorations at Versailles. This is TRUE! The queen's bedroom at Le Petit Trianon really is full of cornflowers.

(4) The Hotel Odette is based on the hotel where I stayed, the Hotel D'Aubusson. Tiniest. Elevators. Ever.

(5) Jules' sister's name is Mathilde. I've always had a fondness for the name Matilda, because when I was little and my family got together for holidays, I would pretend to be a dog and my uncle would call me Matilda. I would spend the whole night roaming around barking and having the time of my life. Every half hour I'd see him and he'd say, "Look, it's Matilda!" You gotta hand it to him, that's a pretty smart way to keep a kid quiet. Anyway, I like the name and I like the character a lot. I especially like her Harry Potter eyeglasses.

I warned you they'd be silly, right? ;-p

Soon I'll be posting the deleted first scene (tip for writers: don't agonize over your first scene in an early draft, it's usually the first thing to go), and soon after that I'll start posting The Paris Journals, a series of short stories about the supporting characters and their unique Parisian experiences.

Merci beaucoup! Have a wonderful day!