Why write about Countess Erzsebet Bathory?
I have always been interested in women who commit violent acts and other liars and manipulators. She became a natural fit for that interest. Have you always been a writer? I have been writing since I learned how to print. I have always written little stories. I wrote my first novel in high school in a little notebook. I was a journalist for many years then worked in publishing, but I always wanted to be a novelist. How did you come to your conclusions about Bathory and the extent of her killings? If you read the testimony of the four senior servants up on trial, they estimated there were between 35 and 80 [killed]. That is a lot of people, a lot of dead girls. A 600 number that gets floated around a lot is based on the testimony of one servant that heard it third hand from someone else. What was her motivation? She had an enormous sense of entitlement. She really felt no one could challenge her and that her title and her estate and her relatives would protect her from prosecution. In a
