It is the strangest feeling, sitting at my computer in a little room in North London, watching spring 2011 outside the winter, surrounded by leaning towers of history books, as I sink myself into Rome five hundred years ago. At this moment I am in the coliseum,  1494, where on Good Friday they put on a great passion play , with roman nobles playing most of the parts and half the city crammed in to watch, transfixed by the double drama: the death of Christ , and the martyrdom of the first Christians which history had told them took place right in this very arena. Also in the audience,  the characters of my novel.  the Pope: Alexander V1 and members of his family, The Borgias.

The Borgias have been my life now for over a year now, this passionate, colorful, clever, violent, powerful family who have suffered so much at the hands of history , their detractors reading gossip and propaganda as truth. My job, to create credible   imaginative, believable characters which are rooted in the time they lived, and which makes you understand their behaviour and enjoy the drama of their lives, without overdosing on sensation and scandal.

Imagine then my amazement when some weeks  ago someone alerted me to a big new drama series about to go out on America television. Neil Jordan (great director and writer)  and Jeremy Irons as the Borgia Pope.  The question of course.  Do I watch it or not?

The answer:   oh no no no…. , or certainly not now.  I am 50,000 words into my own world and my own vision.  The one thing I do not need is someone's pictures getting in the way of my own. But once the book is finished, I shall watch…. with trepidation  but also great excitement.

The  Borgias. What a family. One could have twenty versions of them and they will still be ripe for more. And now back to the Vatican…..