Author of Historical Fiction and Mysteries
The popular perception of those who arrived on the shores of North America on the Mayflower is that they were all godly puritans and that the colony of Plymouth was an idyllic community where everyone worked equally hard and religious harmony prevailed. This image may be idealized, if we are to believe the version of... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Judith Starkson Map of Hittite empire One of the delights of writing historical fiction—even when it blends into fantasy as mine does—comes from delving into the past via research. My fiction is set in the world of the ancient Hittites, a powerful Bronze Age empire (1600-1200 BCE) that stretched across what is... Continue Reading →
Today's review is a bit of a throwback, especially given that Hilary Mantel recently published the last book in her historical Cromwell series, The MIrror and The Light. However, that book had rather mixed reviews, so to get my Mantel fix I reached for something else on my shelf, A Place of Greater Safety, published in 1992. I have... Continue Reading →
Colum McGann's novel Zoli delves into the little known world of eastern European Roma, who for centuries were known as Gypsies. Although set mainly in Slovakia, it is loosely based on the life of Polish Roma poet Papusza. Disaffected Irishman Stephen Swann arrives in Slovakia in the early postwar years, attracted by the revolutionary allure of the... Continue Reading →
In the fourth installment of the Giordano Bruno series, Treachery, Sir Francis Drake is still basking in the glory of being the first person to circumnavigate the globe. It is August 1585 and he is preparing for another sea voyage, which this time will take him to the New World via the coast of Spain,... Continue Reading →
Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger combines historical fiction with a touch of supernatural. Set in a crumbling, gloomy manor of Hundreds Hall in the English countryside in the immediate postwar years, it has a psychologically tense air that will appeal to many gothic mystery fans. Middle-aged country physician, Dr. Faraday, is called one day to attend to... Continue Reading →
After what felt like hours but could not have been more than ten or fifteen minutes, we arrived at the duke’s private apartments, where he had received me three days earlier. Neither courtiers nor servants filled the antechamber this time; there were only two stone-faced guards standing sentinel on either side of the inner door.... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Peter Curtis After retiring from medical work, I decided to write an account of my family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939. I researched refugee life in France and Britain and read a host of WWII accounts: military events, famous or infamous people, insurmountable obstacles overcome, and Holocaust survivals. I always had... Continue Reading →
Ariel Lawhon's historical novel Flight of Dreams imagines the lives of the Hindenburg passengers in the final days before the epic disaster that destroyed the airship. The history is well-known: in the 1930s, the world's aviation industry was rapidly changing and expanding into intercontinental passenger travel, and nothing was a greater symbol of those ambitions that the... Continue Reading →
In the summer of 1545, Caterina Konarska undertakes the long journey from Bari to Kraków in search of a cure for her ailing son Giulio. In Poland, she finds a court far different from the lively, cultured place she remembers from twenty-five years ago. The old king lies on his deathbed, and the once-charming Queen... Continue Reading →
