Historical Fiction Writer
Much praise has been heaped on Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I am not going to write another review after the likes of The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR and The New Yorker have had a go, but I’d like to offer a personal reflection and... Continue Reading →
The destruction of the ancient city of Pompeii by Vesuvius in AD 79 has inspired countless works of fiction and non-fiction over the years, but when I heard Sophie Perinot (of The Medicis' Daughter fame) talk about A Day of Fire at this year's literary festival in Newburyport, it piqued my interest. Perinot is one... Continue Reading →
I don’t usually review non-historical fiction; but when I heard Ed Meek read from his new short story collection “Luck” at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, I knew it was something I wanted to write about. Meek’s concise, elegant prose zooms in on the lives of Bostonians both at home and farther afield, and is... Continue Reading →
Writing advice columns abound with the mantra that we should write every day, even if it's just a page, a paragraph, a sentence. And while it is generally true – after all, we don't want our skills to get rusty; we want to see them improve steadily – it is equally important to know when... Continue Reading →
In the year 1115 young Hildegard arrives at the abbey of St. Disibod in the Rhineland dreaming of becoming a physician. Were she a boy, she might attend the monastic school, but instead she must live in seclusion at the affiliated women’s convent. But her desire to heal is not so easily thwarted. By force... Continue Reading →
Disclaimer: This review is based on an advanced reading copy provided by the authors. In the summer of 1914, everyone thought that the “war to end all wars” would end within four months, and everybody would be home for Christmas. As we all know, that did not happen. The subsequent four years are the setting... Continue Reading →
Julie Berry's new novel The Passion of Dolssa intrigued me for many reasons. It is historical fiction; it is set in the Middle Ages; it features a saint-like character; and - most interestingly, given the spiritual subject matter - it is geared towards young adults. I admit: I'm not a YA reader, much less writer.... Continue Reading →
Modern Girls, a novel about a mother and daughter who find themselves in a family way in the 1930s New York, could easily have been yet another feel-good story where the heroine makes the right decision after a bit of hand-wringing, and all is well. But life is messy, and choices are rarely black-and-white. Thankfully,... Continue Reading →
Catherine Lowell’s debut novel The Madwoman Upstairs is equal parts an intellectual coming-of-age story, a romance and a literary mystery. Does it deliver on all counts? Twenty-year-old Samantha Whipple, still mourning the death of her father in a house fire five years ago, arrives at Oxford to begin her studies in literature. But she’s not... Continue Reading →
