Author of The Greenest Branch, a novel of Germany's first female physician
Artist Sandro Botticelli's painting Primavera is one of the most celebrated artworks of the Italian Renaissance. Breaking with many conventions of the past, it askewed religious imagery in favor of a secular theme of spring awakening. As such it garnered a great deal of criticism from Church authorities when it was painted in the late... Continue Reading →
You've written a book. You were so inspired, you love the result, your friends and family think it's great. Now you want to put it in front of readers as soon as possible. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as you will see below) before you open the browser and set up your Amazon KDP author account, there... Continue Reading →
When I read a well-executed historical novel, it typically sends me on a mini research bender where I try to read up on the era or the event as much as I can. I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon is one of those novels. The historical event it's woven around is the Russian Revolution - actually, two... Continue Reading →
Guest post by Paula Butterfield It was the middle of another fall quarter, and I was again teaching my course on Women in the Arts. I’d already introduced my students to the floral still lifes of 16th c. Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch, and Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun’s portraits of the 18th c. French court. Each student had... Continue Reading →
The Whale: A Love Story is a fictionalized take on a question that has puzzled literary scholars for more than 150 years. Was the short, intense friendship between two American writers Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne simply a meeting of minds, or something more and - given the times - forbidden? The two first met... Continue Reading →
Song of the Siren starts off an exciting new series Songs of Steppe & Forest by author C.P. Lesley. It takes us deep into Eastern Europe during the middle part of the 16th century. It was a century that saw the reign of some of the most fearsome and consequential monarchs in history, from Henry VIII to... Continue Reading →
Guest post by Tony Riches It all began with my research for a novel about the life of Henry Tudor, who like me was born in the Welsh town of Pembroke. I collected more than enough material for a substantial book – and discovered there were no novels about his amazing story. I think this... Continue Reading →
My own writing and research take me back to the Middle Ages and, more recently, the 16th century Eastern Europe. So it is refreshing to come across historical fiction that is much closer to our own times, and set in the period that I am also quite interested in but do not know as much... Continue Reading →
On a rainy day in November 1950, Father Michael Kavanagh seeks refuge in New York's famed Cloisters Museum of medieval art at the northern tip of Manhattan. There he meets a mysterious woman who turns out to be a Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor. One of the few possessions she managed to salvage from the ravages of... Continue Reading →
