I am fascinated by the heroines of this new series, A League of Extraordinary Women, who are suffragists! It was also particularly intriguing in the scenes where Queen Victoria shows up, to find that she was against this movement, and wanted to get rid of feminists. What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching this novel?  I spent some time in the archives of Oxford’s first women’s college, Lady Margaret Hall, to research my story. The first surprise was how pleased the archivist was about my interest in the first women at Oxford because they were so “under-explored”. I wondered why–these women were extraordinary, pioneers if you will, considering how unusual and controversial it was for a woman to go for higher education in 1879. I want to add that LMH shone a spotlight on the first women students this summer, when they marked the 140th anniversary of the college, and I was delighted when they asked me to share my research for the occasion. The other big surprise was how frequently objections to women’s rights in the Victorian era were couched in terms of concern for women’s health and happiness. Women were not allowed to fully matriculate…