Last year, Julia Buckley interviewed Finnis about her work. The first exchanges from their interview:
Your mysteries, Get Out or Die and A Bitter Chill, are set in First Century Roman Britain. Living in England as you do, were you always fascinated by the Roman ruins in your country? Or did this setting emerge generally from a love of history?Read the entire interview.I’ve always found history fascinating. I remember as a small child marveling at the straight Roman roads in East Yorkshire where I was brought up, and being awed by the mediaeval Minster at York, where we went every year for the Christmas Eve carol service. Then when I was about thirteen, I read Robert Graves’ wonderful pair of books, I Claudius and Claudius the God, and from then on I was hooked on Ancient Roman history, and I still am.
Your heroine’s name is Aurelia Marcella. What sort of research did you do to place Aurelia authentically in the ancient world?
I did, and still do, a mass of research on the Roman Empire in the first century AD. I love research, so it’s no hardship. I read hooks, by modern historians and also by classical writers; I use the Internet (but one needs to be cautious here, because some websites are richer in enthusiasm than scholarship;) I pick the brains of experts, and find people very generous with information.
Read an excerpt from Buried Too Deep, and learn more about the author and her work at Jane Finnis' website and her blog, the Lady Killers.
The Page 69 Test: Buried Too Deep.
--Marshal Zeringue