And I forgot to say, one of my favourite historical fiction writers - Lindsey Davis - is an old girl of Lady Margaret too!

Lindsey Davis writes the Marcus Didius Falco series of detective novels set in Imperial Rome.

She was born and brought up in Birmingham, read English at Oxford at Lady Margaret, then joined the Civil Service. After thirteen years, a novel she had written to cheer herself up was runner-up for the Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize, which encouraged her to leave her job and try to become a writer. She was accepted for the government's Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and there- after classified as a Small Business lol, although it took years of struggle to achieve her success. She mainly writes about the Romans with The Course of Honour, the true love story of the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress Antonia Caenis, that I have already told you about, probably being her best work - I think. Her research into Imperial Rome then inspired The Silver Pigs, the first in the Falco series about a Roman informer/private detective in the AD 70s. There are heaps of Falco books. I love them and used to read them to my kids at night when we were away on holidays - especially in Italy! They can become a bit of a compulsion, but if you start - start with The Silver Pigs!