![]() ![]() We were invited to the Chicago House in Luxor and given private tours of the nearby temples. Every evening we sipped beverages and watched the sun set over the Nile. We had a suite in the Winter Palace in Luxor with a balcony. My trip to Egypt with Barbara was incredible. Contractions-how I missed them!ĭidn’t you once travel with her to Egypt? (Barbara didn’t want to carry the series past WWI.) My biggest challenge with The Painted Queen was attempting to capture the subtlety of the somewhat stilted language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I reread most of the series, focusing on the books set just before 1912 and immediately afterward. Of course I was concerned about fulfilling reader expectations. I received what was the first third of the manuscript and some scribbled notes that did not tell me how she intended to resolve the major issues. We talked weekly about the work in progress, but she hadn’t decided how to handle the discovery of the bust of Nefertiti and the ensuing madness. (I declined.) She was concerned about drawing out the plot based on three assassins. She researched monocles, ordered some, and offered to send me one. ![]() When Barbara began to conceptualize The Painted Queen, she told me that she wanted a man with a monocle to fall over dead in Amelia’s bathing chamber. However, I knew I was the most logical person to do so because she and I had the same slightly sardonic voice and jaded wit.ĭid you encounter difficulties in ascertaining her intended direction? After Barbara’s funeral, Dominick Abel-Barbara’s agent as well as mine-and Beth Mertz-Barbara’s daughter-asked me to finish the book.
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