Author of Historical Fiction and Mysteries
For a historical fiction writer and author, I was largely unfamiliar with Regency writing. It's a period that has many devoted fans, so I recently jumped on the wagon to see what all the fuss was about. My first foray into Regency historical fiction was a mystery titled What Angels Fear by author C.S. Harris. The story's... Continue Reading →
In this latest installment of the Matthew Shardlake series, the eponymous character decamps to Norfolk on a personal mission for the Lady Elizabeth and becomes embroiled in a massive uprising that threatens to engulf England. In the early summer 1549 - during the reign of Edward VI - Lady Elizabeth Tudor becomes concerned about the... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Excerpt from Midnight Fire, Jagiellon Mystery #2 Increasingly bored, I was about to turn to Maria, when the volume of conversations suddenly abated and heads turned toward one corner of the hall. A sense of anticipation filled the air, as if the gathering awaited the beginning of a performance by a troupe of players, lowering... Continue Reading →
As a new Vermonter, I'm fascinated by local folktales. None are more popular here than those telling of the possible existence of Bigfoot, a hairy, ape-like creature that is said to dwell in the wilderness. J.P. Choquette's Silence In the Woods is the first in the Monsters in the Green Mountains series that centers around... Continue Reading →
I haven't enjoyed a novel like Kate Morton's The Lake House in a long time. What a revelation! A dual time narrative, the novel tells the parallel story of Alice Edavane whose baby brother Theo went missing from the family's Cornish estate in the summer of 1933; and that of Sadie Sparrow, a Met detective... Continue Reading →
The Giordano Bruno historical mystery series by S.J. Parris is one of my favorite, and part five, Conspiracy, does not disappoint. Set in Paris in the fall of 1585, it sees Bruno return to Paris after his latest adventure helping quash a plot against Queen Elizabeth in London. The philosopher is in search of a quiet life and... Continue Reading →
P.K. Adams 