Guest post from Robin Maxwell, author of JANE

I'm thrilled to welcome Robin Maxwell, whose new novel JANE: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan is out today. JANE is a thrilling and evocative telling of the Tarzan legend from Jane's point of view;  officially authorized by the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate, JANE will transport you into the wilds of Africa on a fantastic journey of self-discovery, danger, love, and adventure. When I was growing up in Spain, I used to go to Saturday matinees to watch old Tarzan movies; I was always entranced by the story. I loved this book because it offers a fresh take on a timeless fable while staying true to the spirit of the original work. Jane Goddall has praised it as "an honest portrayal of the only woman of whom I have been really, really jealous" and Margaret George calls it "a triumph."

 Please join me in welcoming Robin, who offers us this guest post about Jane.

JANE: Queen of the Jungle

When I was growing up in the 60s, of all the characters I watched breathlessly on late night TV, I was most envious of Tarzan’s beloved Jane (from the 1930s feature films starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan). I was also intrigued by Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, starring the leggy blonde Irish McCalla who had her own TV series and ruled her domain without a man.But while Sheena had a better outfit—a seductive little leopard skin number, gold upper-arm bracelet, spear, and that curved horn she’d blow in times of danger, Jane had a full-blown romance in paradise with the hunky (if dumb) Tarzan. So what if she stood—as actresses did in those days—in a sophisticated slouch with hands on hips and was somehow a cosmopolitan lady underneath it all? And who cared that after a scintillating start with her revealing two-piece outfit and a four-minute-long fully nude swimming sequence with Tarzan her tog became a high-necked, brown leather house-dress?

It was all right. The movie-Jane still lived a wild, unfettered life, cavorting with wild animal friends, chasing through one hair-raising adventure after another, and (gasp!) living in sin with a half-naked Adonis.

This was the extent of my girlish jungle fantasy. As I grew into adulthood no other Tarzan movies were remotely satisfying. The one I waited for breathlessly in 1984 (Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes) was the greatest disappointment of them all. This Jane, a delicate, corseted Victorian lady, made her entrance fully halfway through the movie and never put a single toe in Tarzan’s jungle. Sacrilege! All the others were forgettable (or like John and Bo Derek’s Tarzan the Ape Man, downright awful). By the time of Disney’s animated version and its live action Tarzan spoof, George of the Jungle, were released, I was too old too care. Or so I thought.

When the idea of a Tarzan story from Jane’s point of view popped unbidden into my head three years ago, I hadn’t had a single thought about the wild couple in three decades. But the concept hit me hard, then haunted me unceasingly until I took action.I began by reading the Edgar Rice Burroughs books in which Jane appeared (eight of the twenty-four, sometimes as only a minor character). I had decided to base my novel primarily on the first in his series, Tarzan of the Apes, as it dealt with the series’ most iconic issues: the feral boy’s back-story; how his lordly English parents came to be marooned on a West African beach; the tribe of talking apes that raised him; his first meeting with Jane, and the foundation of their love affair.

I admit to being shocked and dismayed by ERB’s characterization of Jane Porter in that first book. She was quite the “Baltimore Belle,” as Alan Hanson wrote in an extensive and erudite essay about Jane’s evolution throughout the novels in which she appeared. She had come to Africa with a treasure hunting party, accompanying her father and attended by her maid, Esmeralda. Here Jane was a wide-eyed, swooning girl, and though she did have one flash of courage in the book—shooting at a lion about to attack—it was followed immediately by Miss Porter fainting dead away.

Her meetings with Tarzan were all too brief, with few words spoken, and the wild man falling instantly in love with her. This young man brought up from the age of one by “anthropoid apes” somehow knew how to kiss Jane on her upturned lips and even wrote her a love note. Eventually, through misunderstandings and twists of fate worthy of Shakespeare, Jane sailed out of Tarzan’s life, leaving him love-struck and forlorn. The ending of Tarzan of the Apes was, to my mind, wholly unsatisfying. It had Tarzan driving an automobile around the American Midwest and saving Jane from a forest fire, then leaving for Africa after giving her up to marry another man for some unfathomable reason, ostensibly “nobility of spirit.”

I learned that Burroughs had been more than a little ambivalent about the female character he had created. While he’d used Jane as the linchpin of the first book, and as a civilizing influence on Tarzan in a couple more (eventually having them marry, making her “Lady Greystoke”) the author actually killed her off in Tarzan the Untamed. Says ERB in a letter to a friend: “…I left Jane dead up to the last gasp and then my publisher and the magazine editor rose up on their hind legs and roared. They said the public would not stand for it…so I had to resurrect the dear lady.” He all but ignored her for eight more novels before returning Jane to the series, finally painting her as a strong, courageous woman adept at “woodcraft” and weapon-making, and capable of surviving alone in the jungle. By Tarzan the Terrible (1921) she thinks as she walk alone and abandoned in the forest, “The parade of cities, the comforts and luxuries of civilization, held forth no allure half as insistent as the glorious freedom of the jungle.”

I was determined that Jane reach this elevated state by the end of my stand-alone novel. And since this was meant to be story from her perspective, I needed to spend sufficient time illuminating her upbringing, circumstances and character before letting her embark on her African adventure. Considering she was an Edwardian girl brought up in an English society stultifying for most females, I gave her a head start—a father who moved mountains to provide his daughter with not just an education, but a vocation: paleoanthropology.

I established Jane as a tomboy and outspoken, rule-breaking, free-thinking “New Woman.” She was an equestrian, proficient archer and skeet shooter, a young lady with big dreams based on the exploits of her personal heroines—outrageous women explorers and adventurers like Mary Kingsley, Annie Smith Peck and Lady Jane Digby. Though a spinster at twenty, my Jane was not immune to lustful daydreams and even experimentation. I felt these traits would allow for modern readers, particularly intelligent female fiction readers, to relate to a protagonist who lived a hundred years ago; make believable the extraordinarily radical shift in her character that was about to occur.

I wanted more than anything a story that bespoke of equality between the sexes. It was vital to me that if Tarzan saved Jane, then Jane would in a different but equally important way, save Tarzan. They would serve as each other’s teachers. The ape man’s character arc would be as sweeping and dramatic as Jane’s. The pair, by the end of my book, would be “fit mates” for one another. To be fair, I had an advantage over both Sheena and Maureen O’Sullivan’s portrayals of Jane. I had a brilliantly detailed, exotic world into which I could set my protagonist down and a boyfriend for her like no other, whose own unique history had been crafted by a master storyteller, and generous permission and authorization to change it at my discretion.

 It was a posthumous gift given me by the late, great Edgar Rice Burroughs. I can only hope that he would approve.

Thank you, Robin! To find out more about Robin, her books, and join in lots of fun activities surrounding the publication of Jane, please visit her website.

Review of O JULIET by Robin Maxwell

Taking on the Bard is no mean feat; Shakespeare's work has become so ingrained in our collective cultural consciousness (whether or not we've ever actually read him) that iconic characters like Romeo and Juliet seem, well, untouchable.

This is partially why Robin Maxwell's new novel O JULIET is so interesting. It takes some chutzpah to clamber onto this particular ledge and she wisely doesn't attempt to re-write Shakespeare's tale. Instead, she utilizes the underpinnings of the famous play as a springboard to deliver an exuberant and at times shamelessly romantic story of first love, as told through the lovers' eyes. She also returns the story to its historical roots by setting it in Florence. However, she selects Florence under the Medici, where Mafia-like techniques co-existed alongside the Renaissance's intoxication with classical antiquity, infusing the story with the era's quioxtic passion and violence.

Juliet dominates the narrative, the daughter of a silk merchant contemplating with distaste, as no doubt did most girls of her era, an arranged marriage. Juliet is best friends with Lucrezia Tornabuoni, a proper Florentine girl about to wed into the Medici clan. At a banquet to celebrate the nuptials, Juliet dances with a virile youth in a wolf mask; soon, they find themselves exchanging barbed bits of Dante and getting that warm oozy feeling we've all have experienced at least once in our lives. Maxwell's Juliet is brash and rebellious; more intriguingly, she's an aspiring poet and Dante-obsessed, and her aspirations clash with her family's expectations of her. Romeo, on the other hand, is everything Romeo should be, including demonstrating a streak of testosterone-driven recklessness that gets him into serious trouble.

In Maxwell's novel, they are truly first-time lovers, smitten with desire and flown on the hyperbole of their hearts, unaware they're careening toward danger. Maxwell excels at depicting the excesses Romeo and Juliet feel for each other, as well as the lengths they're willing to go to indulge them. She brings 15th century Florence alive, particularly a night climb to the Duomo, and evokes the immortal joy and tragedy of youth in an unapologetic paean to a love that transcended death.

It's 2010; time to win some bling!

Happy New Year. I hope you had a lovely time ringing out the decade. May 2010 bring you much love, health, and success.

Now, time to win some bling! Fellow historical fiction author and good friend Robin Maxwell is launching her "O, Juliet Love Games" in celebration of her upcoming novel O, JULIET - a sumptuous, first-time-ever novelized account of the legendary lovers. Today, Monday, January 4th, and on the next two Mondays to follow, you can enter to win a signed copy of the book and a heart necklace (one hand-crafted solid silver, one blown glass, and one carved Thai silver) on Robin's blog. All you need to provide is your email address and answer a simple question about love. You can read a sneak peek of O, JULIET here.

Good luck! What better way to start the new year than with books and jewelry?

Guest Post by Robin Maxwell, author of SIGNORA DA VINCI

One of the highlights of 2008 for me was reading an advance copy of Robin Maxwell's SIGNORA DA VINCI, set in 15th century Italy. Robin's books have thrilled me for years; whether she's exploring the life of Anne Boleyn, the youth of Elizabeth I or the Irish tragedy of Elizabeth's later reign, her work is distinguished by painstaking scholarship, a true passion for the era, and dramatic characterizations. When I first got SIGNORA DA VINCI , I was excited, as everything I'd read of Robin's thus far was set in the Tudor period. I was also honored because Robin herself had asked me to give the book an endorsement, which says it all:

"Maxwell tells the story of Caterina, an alchemist's daughter whose illicit love affair brings her the greatest love of her life, her genius son Leonardo da Vinci. In order to watch over and protect him, she escapes the restrictions of her gender, entering into a seductive garden of philosophy, art, and learning. From the dusty streets of Vinci and the glories of Il Magnifico's Florence, to the conspiratorial halls of Rome and Milan, Signora da Vinci celebrates one woman's unquenchable ardor for knowledge, and a secret world that readers rarely see."

I am honored to present this guest post from my friend, Robin Maxwell, in celebration of the publication of what I personally consider her best book to date, the fabulous and unputdownable SIGNORA DA VINCI.

I know I’m not alone in my utter fascination for the ridiculously fertile mind and staggering accomplishments of the original “Renaissance Man”— Leonardo da Vinci. But studying his works revealed only a fraction of the intimate, character-driven story I knew I wanted to tell in Signora da Vinci. Who was this person? What was he like as a child? Most of all: where did he acquire his earth shattering genius? The more I dug, the clearer it became. There was simply no way that he’d inherited his gifts from his social-climbing, icy-hearted, petty bureaucrat of a father. They had to have come from his mother.

The problem, I discovered, was that next to nothing is known of Caterina da Vinci, save her name and this cluster of facts: Leonardo’s father refused to marry her, and the infant was snatched from Caterina’s arms the day after his birth, thereafter raised in the loveless home of his paternal grandfather. Somehow, the dearth of information about “the most important woman we’ve never heard of,” sparked a fire in my mind. The city of Florence, at the very moment that Leonardo was sent there to learn his trade as an artist, was the center of the intellectual, cultural and political universe. The brightest stars of philosophy, science, art, architecture, music and international finance came together and out of the ashes of Medieval Europe built the foundation of the Renaissance movement.

Bound and determined to take these intriguing puzzle pieces and create a compelling novel, I concocted a device that allowed Caterina to follow her young son into the city —and to my great delight — to insinuate herself into the innermost circles of Florentine society. I disguised her as a man. Suddenly I possessed, through Caterina, the best of both worlds for an author of fiction— a character that was able to view her son Leonardo’s glorious and sometimes scandalous career through a woman’s eyes, while gaining entrée into intellectual circles — Lorenzo de’ Medici’s secret and heretical “Platonic Academy” — normally reserved for men.

For me, the Italian Renaissance was not simply an explosion of the art and architecture that most people think of when they hear the words. What my research uncovered was a “Shadow Renaissance” steeped in Platonic and Hermetic philosophy and Egyptian magic. Almost every ruler, writer, scientist or thinker in those years at least toyed with alchemy and the occult. Despite the church’s prohibitions, most of these great men (and a few women) took these views very seriously indeed. Few admitted to being outright atheists like Leonardo, but attempting to meld Christian scripture with the pagan mysteries was extremely common, especially in educated and highly cultured circles…even in Rome.

Despite its importance, one finds little if anything written about the Platonic Academy and its impact on the early Italian Renaissance -- as though it was a men’s social club and not an overarching philosophy that informed the lives of its members, making them especially vulnerable when the Dominican friar, Savonarola, came to power. Authors – both fiction and non-fiction – tend to ignore the implications of such towering figures as Lorenzo de Medici – one of the greatest patrons of the Academy – adhering to such heretical beliefs. But this was, in fact, the foundation of the revolution in thinking that brought Europe out of the dark ages and into the light of the Renaissance.

And then there was Leonardo himself. While everyone seems to have extremely strong opinions about the man, no one – biographer or historian – has conclusive evidence about whether Leonardo was straight, gay, bi-sexual or asexual. My best guess is that his sexual preferences changed according to his age, his social setting, and the emotional and political pressures brought to bear upon him. As a young apprentice in Verrocchio’s bottega, Leonardo was surrounded by lots of “pretty boys” who had little or no money to spend on whores, so homosexual behavior was perhaps more a necessity than a choice.

When Leonardo was nineteen, he and three other Florentine youths (two of whom were relatives of the Medici) were arrested by the church’s Officers of Night on a charge of “sodomy.” The infamous trial that ensued proved nothing, and charges were later dropped. Once he was a bit older, there was every reason to think he visited the female, as well as male prostitutes.

It seems clear that the sodomy trial had an effect on Leonardo’s sexuality – putting him off it for a time. The scandal seemed to traumatize the young, exquisitely sensitive young man. Once an outgoing, fancily clad man-about-town, he became quite reclusive and solitary. Later in life, Leonardo appeared asexual. While he adored having beautiful young men surrounding him as apprentices, he was so caught up in the “life of the mind” that sex may have become quite unimportant to him. Some of his writings suggest that he thought the sex act silly, the sex organs repulsive, and the only redeeming qualities the attractive faces of the participants – all that kept the human race from dying out.

But of all the mysteries surrounding Leonardo, the Turin Shroud hoax is the most intriguing. In Signora da Vinci I’ve based my sub-plot on the idea that the relic was not the burial cloth of the savior, but the first photograph in the history of the world, taken by Da Vinci and a small band of conspirators, with Leonardo himself as Jesus.

SIGNORA DA VINCI is available in bookstores everywhere. Please visit Robin at her fun and informative website at http://www.robinmaxwell.com, where you will find more about her work and a special passport to the complex, fascinating world of SIGNORA DA VINCI.

Thank you, Robin, for taking the time to visit Historical Boys. We wish you all the success in the world!

Interview with Robin Maxwell, author of MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Robin Maxwell's latest work, MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN, for the Historical Novel Reviews. In this novel, she returns to the subject of her debut bestseller, Anne Boleyn; this time, however, she depicts Anne's life in the court of France before her celebrated rise to power as Henry VIII's second queen. Robin is a delightful woman to correspond with, full of wit and verve, in addition to her extraordinary talent as a writer. She's been a favorite of mine for years and I'm honored to welcome her for her very first blog interview.

Robin Maxwell is the author of six historical novels. A 15th and 16th century history nut who can't seem to stop writing about the historical figures she feels have been overlooked by historians, or have a side of them that hasn't been properly explored, she lives in the rural high desert of California with her husband of 25 years, yogi Max Thomas and two wonderful exotic birds who are her muses. Visit her at: http://www.robinmaxwell.com/

1. Congratulations on the publication of MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN. It's a pleasure to have you with us. Set in 16th century France, MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN is a compelling, imaginative account of Anne Boleyn’s youth in France. This period in her life has hardly been addressed in fiction, compared to her later career as Henry VIII’s most famous wife, though many historians believe it was during her stay at the court of François I where Anne learned about the perils and power of becoming a royal mistress. You have of course written about Anne Boleyn before, in your wonderful debut novel THE SECRET DIARY OF ANNE BOLEYN. What inspired you to return to her as a character and explore this particular time in her life?

Thanks for having me. This is my first blog interview. When I see what's happening with web technology and how little I know about it, I sometimes feel like I'm still living in the 16th century. As for writing about one of my favorite historical personages at this specific period, it was one of those amazing graces -- no historical fiction had been written about Anne Boleyn during that most fascinating period of her life, ages 8-17. The time that she was becoming the Anne Boleyn that everyone knows, or think they know about. Here was a fabulous, sexy world -- the lascivious court of Francois I -- all ripe for the picking. Having a new angle on an oft-told story or character is, I think, one of the keys to a successful historical novel.

Interestingly, I found the same opportunity twelve years ago when I started writing SECRET DIARY. There had been a lull in fiction writing about Anne. Of course I read everything I could get my hands on -- fiction and biography. And it suddenly occurred to me that no one had truly made the connection between Anne and her daughter, Elizabeth I. Maybe a few sentences or a paragraph. But nothing about how that mother affected that daughter's life and choices. The older I get the more it becomes apparent that our parents' influence is with us from birth to death. With Anne and Elizabeth there were limitless possibilities. In MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN, it is the Boleyn sisters' father, Thomas Boleyn, who is the great and terrible influence.

2. MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN offers a fascinating look at the court of France during François I’s early years. What challenges did you encounter while researching this time? What surprising or interesting facts did you discover about the French court and Anne’s place in it?

First of all, I had never been in France (I'd been to England three times). There's so very much you can do with books and the internet. But I was particularly stumped about the feel of Paris in 1515. I mentioned this to my wonderful editor at Penguin, and she told me that her mother had spent a lot of time in France. She gave me her mom's phone number and subsequently she and I had some wonderful conversations. I asked her a lot about geography -- there was only so much I could get from maps from the period -- and she even did some research for me. She found a great website that I hadn't seen. My favorite discovery had to do with how well-loved Anne Boleyn was before she returned to England at age 17 and the whole Henry VIII saga began, a period that was filled with jealous enemies -- ones that eventually saw to it that Anne was beheaded and her reputation besmirched. In the courts of Burgundy and in France she was a little dark-eyed wonder. Precocious and charming. A quick study in French who became, at a very tender age, the English interpreter for Claude, the Queen of France. She also became a favorite of King Francois' sister, the progressive and scholarly Duchess Marguerite. This woman opened Anne's eyes to the "New Religion," Protestantism, and later Anne was the person who first brought these ideas to Henry VIII, and with it the Protestant Reformation to England.

3. An interesting storyline within the novel is Anne Boleyn’s friendship with Leonardo da Vinci, who had come to France to live at François I’s invitation. There is no extant evidence to support Anne’s meeting with Leonardo, so how did you go about creating this situation so that it would fit within the facts of her life?

I was in the process of researching THE DA VINCI WOMAN -- a novel about the Italian Renaissance seen through the eyes of Leonardo's mother -- when I decided to change course and write MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN first. When I saw the places (the French court at Amboise) and the dates I was going to be writing about in the Boleyn book, 1514 - 1522, I realized that several of those coincided with Leonardo living as a guest at the French court, in fact as a dear friend of Francois. I went rushing to my Anne Boleyn biographies, and in three of them, they mentioned that Leonardo Da Vinci was living there at the same time she was. One even suggested that it was likely that they knew each other. That was all it took, and I was off and running. That they became friends is my invention. But there is nothing in the historical record to say that they were not. The "secret passage" between Amboise and Cloux (the manor house Francois gifted Leonardo that I write about) was a discovery I made on a website about Amboise. That was like finding a gold nugget!

4. You have written not only about Anne Boleyn, but also in subsequent novels about her daughter Elizabeth I and Elizabeth’s lover Robert Dudley (THE QUEEN’S BASTARD), the pirate Grace O’ Malley and Essex (THE WILD IRISH), and the disappearance of the princes in the Tower during the time of Richard III (TO THE TOWER BORN). Can you tell us about any methods that you employ to give your characters such marvelous authenticity?

It's a combination of intensive research -- reading EVERYTHING I can get my hands on about an individual, his or her close and not-so-close relationships, and the period and places from history books and biographies and the internet. I do NOT read any historical fictions of the period, terrified of unconscious plagiarism. It's important to look deep in this reading period, because what appears as a tiny fact or a small character, can turn into an important one. A perfect example: during my research for SECRET DIARY OF ANNE BOLEYN, I read one sentence in one history book. It said that Anne had a woman fool. Nothing else. But that struck a chord. I started asking myself who that fool was. How she became a fool (did she come from a family of jesters, did she go to "fool school?"). How she ended up in Anne and Henry's court. I knew that fools were the only people who were allowed to speak the truth in that ruthless, terrifying environment, and that this character would have to be humorous. The one thing Anne's story, especially the last three years of her life as the queen, were as serious as they got, so a fool was a perfect addition. Enter Niniane. She became a wonderful character and has one of the best, most emotional lines of the book.

With THE WILD IRISH, I actually made a 3'x6' chart with every year from 1530 (year of Grace O'Malley's birth) - 1601 (end of the story) down the left hand column. Across the top I wrote the names of Grace, Elizabeth I, Tibbot Burke (Grace's son), the Earl of Essex, Richard Bingham (villain), Hugh O'Neill (arch rebel) and then "all others." Under each heading I made a column. Then I went through every history book and biography I had and filled in the blanks as in "in this year, such and such happened to Grace O'Malley - giving birth to Tibbot, what year Essex left with the English army to fight in Ireland). Then I was able to track and cross-check everything. A story emerged from the chart, one that was as close to the history of the period as possible.

Of course there are giant holes in history, action that was not reported that had to have happened, things that we'll never know about personality, what people actually said in human words to each other, what they were thinking, and especially how they were feeling. All the stuff that takes the information out of the realm of history into the realm of historical fiction. I use extrapolation to help me jump the chasm from the known to the unknown. I have to be a detective or sorts, to read between the lines, and a psychologist to figure out what a person must have been going through emotionally. I have very strong memories of my own relationships and feelings and moments in my own life, so I use them liberally. I try every chance I get to slip into a character's shoes. Say to myself, "If I were facing this person and this situation, considering my background, my history with that person and which side of the bed I got out of this morning, what would I say, what would I do?" I also believe that most of the basic emotions I write about in the 15th and 16th century -- love, lust, hatred, fear, jealousy, humiliation, pride -- are all emotions we still have today. I just try to put them into context and in words that fit the period.
That, I think, is what gives characters their authenticity.

5. Your novel offers a candid and at times difficult look at how women were used as chattel by the men who sought power through them. Both Anne and her sister Mary were exploited by their father to further the Boleyn name and prestige at court. Why do you think Anne proved the exception, in that she took charge of her own destiny, defying the odds to become queen of England? Do you believe that had she not gone abroad at such an early age, her destiny might have been different?

I definitely think that her years abroad are what took Anne from being a provincial girl to being the great woman she became. That is where she got her extraordinary education. In fact, the working title for the novel was The Sexual Education of Anne Boleyn. But of course she got much more than a sexual education. In particular, she got a religiously progressive education from Francois' beloved and indulged sister, Marguerite. Of course I think Anne had the seeds of an exceptional character from the get-go. She was eight when she went to the court of Burgundy, and by nine she had learned the French language sufficiently enough to become a royal translator for Queen Claude.

6. How do you think your novel speaks to today’s reader or how do the events you evoke resonate for today’s world?

I just wrote an op ed piece called "Hillary Boleyn." It compares Anne and Hillary Clinton, showing how it's not so different now and back in the 16th century when it comes to a woman who aspires to great things -- one who refuses to shut her mouth, one who stands up to the male establishment. How badly these women are treated, especially by spin doctors and the press, and the people who are failing to shut them up. Anne Boleyn helped bring the Protestant religion to England. For that, and having too much influence with Henry for too long, she was reviled and ended up headless. Hillary, as First Lady, took on the American "MegaChurch with Two Heads" - the pharmaceutical and health insurance companies -- and she was cut off at the knees. Told to go home and bake cookies. And let's not forget, there are still huge swaths of the world tin which women are bought and sold into marriage and even sexual slavery by their fathers. Some things change. Others don't.

7. Please tell us about your next project.

The DA VINCI WOMAN may become my masterpiece. I had to move to a different era, a different country and learn about all new personalities. I chose the most fabulous of them --- Leonardo Da Vinci, his mother Caterina, Lorenzo "the Magnificent" Medici and his brother Giuilino, Boticelli, Savonarola, Roderigo Borgia, and the members of Florence's "Platonic Academy." I took on not only the Renaissance that everybody knows about (learning about the art and architecture) but also what I call "the Shadow Renaissance," which I think is the true Rebirth. It had to do with science and philosophy, Hermeticsm, alchemy, the occult and esoteric learning. Talk about having to dig! But I found precious gems everywhere I looked (if I looked deep enough). It is an emotional book, perhaps the greatest love story I've ever written between and man and a woman, and the deepest and most beautiful relationship I've written between a parent and child.

Thank you, Robin. We're looking forward to this next novel by one of the genre's most genuine and delightful writers.