If you’ve read Death at the School of Translators, you’ve met Eleanor of Aquitaine—the queen who sets Rebecca’s entire adventure in motion and pulls all the strings from beginning to end. Eleanor was the great English/French queen who wasn’t supposed to rule, but ended up being better at it than most men. Queen Eleanor by Frederick Sandys, 1858. Image: National Museum Wales She grew up surrounded by poetry, thanks to her grandfather the troubadour, and was fascinated by the k

How much history is a historical fiction writer allowed to change?Where do you draw the line in historical fiction? Should a writer be allowed to move a real person to a place they weren't actually in? Give them powers they didn't really have? Shift a historical date to make a story possible?

Could a Jewish man or woman in 12th-century Iberia tell where a tallit came from? Why I needed to know In Poison in the Season of Peace, Rebecca and John find a tallit thrown over a smeared nativity scene. Rebecca gets it out of sight before anyone else can see it.

As part of my research into medieval healing, I attended a herb workshop. I learned so much! There’s a world of difference between reading about something and actually doing it with your own two hands.