Author of Historical Fiction and Mysteries
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 →
The Power to Deny introduces the reader to one of the forgotten figures of the late colonial and revolutionary America. Elizabeth Graeme was a Philadelphia socialite and a poet in her own right who was friends with, and admired by, many in her day, including some of the men who went on to sign the Declaration... Continue Reading →
The Witch's Trinity spent a good couple of years on my TBR list, and I am so glad I finally got to it. Transporting the reader into late medieval Germany, it tackles the fascinating and terrifying topic of witch trials and the social, economic and religious structures that made them possible. During the winter of... 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 →
Shortly after midnight on April 15, 1912 as the Titanic was sinking into the icy waters of the North Atlantic, she was far from being alone on the vast ocean, although it would have seemed so to her passengers and crew. In fact, she was in the middle of a busy shipping lane, and no... Continue Reading →
Anyone who knows me (in my capacity as a writer, anyway) will tell you that when it comes to historical fiction I am a traditionalist: I don't want my historical figures and facts mixed up with zombies, werewolves, or ghosts (maybe I'll make an exception for ghosts... maybe). So it was with a bit of... 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 →
P.K. Adams 