Over the years I have had many readers write to me saying they know someone who resembles the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. Their mother, their aunt, their daughter, themselves. One reader memorably told me I resembled the Girl, and that must be why I wrote about her.

That comment came back to me recently when my new novel A Single Thread came out in Italy, with the title La Ricamatrice di Winchester. An interview with me was published in Corriere della Sera, and it was illustrated thus:

Now, that doesn't look quite like the painting, nor quite like me, but a little of both. I was totally flattered!