Rhys Bowen: A Writer’s Journey

Rhys Bowen’s work has sold close to 10 million copies, in over 30 languages. She has been nominated for every major mystery award and has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. 

Her books include the Royal Spyness and Molly Murphy historical mysteries, as well as several international bestselling stand-alone novels.

By Rhys Bowen

When I’m asked to write about how I became a writer I can definitely say that my early childhood shaped me as a future writer.  I was born in the middle of WWII. I lived with my grandmother and great aunt while my father fought in Egypt and my mother was a teacher, required to work.  These two old ladies were my only companions. I didn’t meet another child until I was four. In wartime there was a lack of toys. So I had to amuse myself. Sometimes I played games of pretend with my blind great aunt. I was the good fairy and she was the wicked witch.  Other times I played with my grandmother’s button box, making all the different buttons into characters: a mother and her children going shopping, school with rows of buttons, a hospital full of chipped buttons in match boxes…

And there was my imaginary family. The Gott sisters. Because I didn’t know any real kids they were called Gorna Gott, Leurr Gott, Googoo Gott and Perambulator Gott.  The Gott family had to come everywhere with me. Places had to be laid for them at the table.

So you can see I had a childhood in which the pretend world was more real to me that the one outside my house. After the war, when my father returned and we moved to a big old house with large grounds outside a village I still spent a lot of my time in the world of pretend. I was Patsy of the Circus, swinging on my trapeze (which I built on one of our trees). A friend and I were detectives, following clues, solving crimes… useful for a future mystery writer.  I started reading detective novels and lapped them up. I kept my little brother amused with stories I invented for him.

In my teens I decided I wanted to be a movie star and wrote scripts for myself so that the moment I became famous I’d have material to work with. And then real writing. I discovered short stories and wrote several on my newly acquired typewriter. One was broadcast on BBC radio before I left school. When I went to college I had decided I wanted to be a journalist. I edited the college newspaper. And then suddenly I realized that I didn’t want to report on tragedies, interview victims.  So I applied to the BBC instead… and was accepted into their trainee program.  After an apprenticeship in various departments I chose drama and became a studio manager. It was now I was seriously thinking of writing and learning from the plays we produced. When I was working on a play I’d find myself thinking, “If I’d written this I wouldn’t have ended this way.” So I wrote a play and with the bravado of a twenty-two-year-old I breezed into the head of drama. “I’ve written this,” I said. 

A few days later he called me in. “We really like this play. We’re going to do it,” he said. So my first published/broadcast work came at the age of twenty two. And I’ve never looked back since then but it has been a convoluted route to where I am now:

I was lured down to Australia by the head of Australian broadcasting. While I was there I met my future husband and together we wound up in California. And found nothing like the drama productions I had been working on. So I started writing children’s books. They did well. I got great reviews and was signed by an agent who asked me to write a teenage novel.  This turned into a whole succession of YA novels until I asked myself one day why I wasn’t writing what I liked to read (which was mystery novels, especially those with a great feel for time and place).  When I was deciding where to set my stories I was recounting to a friend my childhood experiences in Wales. (My mother’s family is Welsh). She was entranced by all the quirky characters and customs. “Have you ever set a book here?” she asked.

Thus Constable Evans was born. My first adult mystery series. I didn’t exactly arrive with fanfare. My first print run was 2500 hardcovers. But somehow the books were noticed. I got my first award nomination. And I created my second series: Molly Murphy, an Irishwoman in early 1900s New York City. That series really did get instant attention. The first book, Murphy’s Law, won the Agatha Award for best novel, plus three other awards.

All was looking up for me. My publisher told me they couldn’t really break me out until I wrote a big dark stand-alone novel. I tried coming up with ideas but all I could think of was the most unlikely heroine possible. What if she was royal but penniless? Her Royal Spyness. I wrote a first chapter. My agent loved it but my publisher not at all. So it was put out to bids and was snapped up. And went through three printings in a week.

My career was now blooming. I won more awards, got Edgar nominations and decided the time was ripe to branch out and write some of the ideas that were buzzing around my head. I wanted to write a big book about WWII and a plot among aristocrats to help Hitler. Both my publishers turned it down. Too far from her brand etc. So Lake Union was excited to acquire this book. It came out selling half a million copies and translated into many languages. The next book, The Tuscan Child ,did even better. Almost a million books sold.

Now I was writing three books a year, all popular, all fun to write, but too much for me. I put Molly Murphy on hold. Then my daughter came to me and said she’d like to try writing Molly with me.  We tried it… instant success. Our sixth book together (Vanished in the crowd) has just been published.

I continue to write the Royal Spyness series (I’m up to book 20 this year) and the stand alone historical novels. The former are light and fun, the latter involve lots of research and trips to various parts of Europe. I have fans around the world and am translated into over 30 languages. 

What have I learned along the way? So much of life is luck. All I can do is write the very best book of which I am capable and make the next one even better, and earn readers one at a time. What a fantastic writing life I have had.  I consider myself truly blessed.

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Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of two mystery series, the Molly Murphy mysteries featuring an Irish immigrant in early New York City and the lighter funnier Royal Spyness series about a minor royal in the 1930s. She also writes historical standalone novels that are internationally best selling and have been translated into over 30 languages. Reese has won 20 awards and been nominated for the Edgar award three times. She is a transplanted Britt, who now divides her time between California and Arizona.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing