Novelist Gill Paul takes iconic women of the 20th century – from Wallis Simpson to Diana, Princess of Wales, from Jackie O to Maria Callas – and spins a magic story that combines fact with imagination to give readers new insights into famous lives. . . .
Hi there. I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and in this week’s Joys of Binge Reading episode Gill talks about the romance of the Romanovs, and her crazy passion for cutting ice to go swimming.
Six Things You Didn't Know
Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:
How joining a small writing group got Gill started
Why the Romanovs stole her heart
The two women who married a Prince of Wales
Cleopatra the movie, Elizabeth Taylor the star
Why she's such a 'swot" in her writing
Her coming book on the Onassis women
Where to find Gill Paul:
Website: http://gillpaul.com/author
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GillPaulAuthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GillPaulAUTHOR
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: Hello there, Gill, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you
with us.
Gill: Jenny. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me.
How Gill got started in writing
Jenny: Now I know that you did do other things before you started your writing, so was there a Once Upon a Time moment where you thought, "I've just got to write some fiction or my life won't quite be complete," and if so, what was the catalyst?
Gill Paul - historical fiction based on fabulous facts
Gill: That's a great question. In fact, I wanted to write from probably when I started reading, but my parents steered me in a different direction, towards studying medicine at university and then I switched and worked in publishing for a while and all the time I was trying to write novels.
I have to say in my teens and early
twenties they were really miserable autobiographical things about lost love
affairs and parents not understanding you.
They were absolutely dreadful and I'm very glad none of them has ever
seen the light of day.
But in my thirties I discovered a little
writing group near where I live in North London, run by a woman called Carol
Cornish. She called it Writing
Space. It was just Friday evenings around
her kitchen table, and she really encouraged us to describe things in an
original way - to really look at the things we were talking about, to probe
deeper and find character. And also have original ideas for plot.
The benefits of a writing group
She was amazing. Three years after I started
doing her Writing Space group, I got an agent and my first publishing deal. So
really, she was the magic catalyst for me.
Jenny: And what was that first book?
Gill: Oh gosh, that was ages ago, and it's terrible. It's called
Enticement. It was a training novel, but it did get published by Hodder and
Stoughton over here. So I'm quite
grateful for that. It was a long time ago, and it's not in print anymore.
Jenny: In your most recent book, The Lost Daughter, you returned to the Romanov family. (the Russian Imperial family of the Czars.) Now you've really made a name for yourself with these novels that are apparently based in fact with interesting people, but also a very lovely story spun around them.
The Secret Wife by Gill Paul
And this is the second time you've used the Romanovs as a basis for a story. Another of your best sellers, The Secret Wife also treated an aspect of the Romanovs. Tell us how you became interested in this royal line.
A fascination with the Romanovs
Gill: Oh, that's a teenage obsession of mine, actually. When I was a teenager, the graves of the
Romanovs hadn't been found, so there was still a possibility that some of them
had escaped, that they might be living quietly in exile somewhere. They might still even be in Russia.
