What I discovered is I don't like to repeat lead characters because one of the most pleasurable things in a book to me is learning about the lead.

For something that's supposed to be secret, there is a lot of intelligence history. Every time I read one book, two more are published.

In the 1930s, there were so many different conflicts going on between the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Romanians and so on.

I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.

I love my mom with all my heart. She's my best friend.

I would like to get jobs doing other things that aren't necessarily always with my husband. I'd like to show range - and kiss another guy.

Well, I think the golden rule I can think of is the fact that you must follow your passion and do something that's close to your heart. And I think that that's very important, well, to be successful and to be happy.

You have to be a lover of books without expecting more of them than they give - a little pleasure, a little insight, a moment of escape, a deepening of your own humanity. Not much else.