Eliza (Score 1)

The character Eliza is one of the better female characters created by a man to appear in a recent work of fiction. Could you comment on how difficult it is to create a female character and make her realistic - especially a seemingly very modern female character plopped into eighteenth-century Western Europe? And is the Eliza character in the Baroque Cycle based on anyone in particular? (Aimée du Buc de Rivery seems a likely candidate.)

I have to add I've read everything you've written and the Baroque Cycle is the best so far! Please don't take eight years for the next one (though it was well worth the wait.)

Thanks,

Will