Kate Quinn is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. A native of southern California, she attended Boston University where she earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Classical Voice. She has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga, and two books in the Italian Renaissance, before turning to the 20th century with The Alice Network, The Huntress, and The Rose Code. All have been translated into multiple languages. Quinn and her husband now live in San Diego with three rescue dogs.
Here Quinn dreamcasts an adaptation of The Rose Code:
Every writer dreams their book will someday be a ten-part HBO miniseries, and I'm no exception! If my novel The Rose Code with its trio of Bletchley Park codebreaker heroines were to get the Hollywood treatment, here's my dream cast:Learn more about the book and author at Kate Quinn's website.
For my effervescent debutante Osla whose fluent German lands her a job translating decoded German intelligence, Holliday Grainger. In The Borgias and CB Strike, she shows Osla's beauty, sparkle, and sense of fun—she's the girl all men fall in love with, and all women want as their best friend.
For my tough-as-nails London shop-girl Mab, who ends up working Bletchley Park's legendary bombe marchines, Cara Delevingne. She has the height, the imperious eyebrows, the resting b*tch face, and shows like Carnival Row showed she can play a woman with a soft center under a hard outer shell.
For Beth, my shy wallflower turned genius cryptanalyst, Anya Taylor-Joy. ATJ proved in The Queen's Gambit that she can play quirky oddball genius women with huge flair and strength.
That's just the heroines—there are plenty of other characters in The Rose Code. Prince Philip (in the days before he was royal consort) shows up in this novel, and after The Crown, I can't think of anyone playing him but Matt Smith. Alan Leech (Branson from Downton Abbey) for Francis Gray, a war poet who will end up as suitor to one of my heroines. Mena Massoud would be terrific as Harry Zarb, an Egyptian-Maltese-Arabic codebreaker who works alongside Alan Turing on the fiendishly difficult German U-boat ciphers. And Anthony Head, after playing such a superb mentor figure in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is the only one I can think of to play Dilly Knox, an absent-minded classics scholar turned codebreaker who recruits Beth for his team!
And soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, please.
Coffee with a Canine: Kate Quinn and Caesar.
My Book, The Movie: Empress of the Seven Hills.
The Page 69 Test: The Rose Code.
--Marshal Zeringue
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