Author of Historical Fiction and Mysteries
Guest blog by Pat Wahler There is an abundance of information, some accurate and some pure fantasy, on the infamous outlaw Jesse James. He had a wife, and I couldn’t help but wonder about her. Why would she marry a man on the wrong side of the law? Why would she stand by him despite... Continue Reading →
Chapter 1 Abbey of St. Disibod, September 1143 I folded the letter and rose from my desk, intending to go find Volmar in the scriptorium to share the long-awaited news. It was a reply from Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom I had sent a chapter of my new book some months earlier in hopes... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Julianne Douglas In 1555, printer Jean de Tournes of Lyon published a small volume of poetry titled EVVRES (WORKS). This innocuous label belied the book’s audacity, for the collection—a proto-feminist dedicatory epistle, a lengthy dialogue between Love and Folly, three elegies, and twenty-four sonnets—was the first of its kind in France: a... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Lesley McDowell I first became interested in the real-life figure of Isabella Baxter Booth when I read what her friend, Mary Shelley, wrote about her in 1823: I have now renewed my acquaintance with the friend of my girlish days – she has been ill a long time, even disturbed in her... Continue Reading →
Guest Post by DM Denton Read Escaping Ziegfeld by DM Denton and Help Rescue Animals My beautiful and talented maternal grandmother died long before I was born. She was a classically trained pianist, receiving “her entire musical education” at the Illinois College of Music, which was established in 1900. There, she “made an extensive study... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Sydney Avey My great-grandmother Nellie Belle Carter was the family’s black sheep. In the early 1900s she left the fold to pursue an unusual career. My mother described her as a stern, sarcastic, determined woman who was an excellent writer. But it was her independent ways that made her a legend. “And,... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Donna Gawell In the Shadow of Salem is the story of an infamous Puritan, Mehitabel Braybrooke. Her life didn’t start out well, and history books and town records have not been kind. Mehitabel was an illegitimate child of a servant and a prosperous landowner, Richard Braybrooke. Both parents were whipped for the... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Carmen Radtke As Queen Victoria’s empire grew and with it the wealth of the nation (mainly of the upper class), the colonies became a beacon of hope for the poor as well as the struggling middle class. In the 1850s and 1860s, New Zealand offered land for farming, and the former convict-colony... Continue Reading →
Anchoresses were medieval women who chose to pursue a particularly demanding form of monastic life, namely complete isolation from the world. Once enclosed, they would typically live out their lives in a small cell, servants delivering their food and the priest hearing their confession being the only people with whom they would have contact. So... Continue Reading →
Guest blog by Pippa Brush Chappell One of the first questions my non-fiction-reading partner always asks about a movie or a book is, 'is it a true story?' It used to really wind me up, but now that I’m trying to write a 'true story,' I find myself having to engage with what that actually... Continue Reading →
P.K. Adams 