Historical fiction award winners from ALA Midwinter 2019

Greetings from the frozen Midwest!On Sunday and Monday, a number of literary awards were announced at the American Library Association's Midwinter conference in Seattle. Although I wasn't in attendance, I was following along as best I could...

Read More

A Love Letter to Houston: a guest post by Dawn Adams Cole, author of Drops of Cerulean

Dawn Adams Cole is stopping by today with an essay about the historical background to her new novel, Drops of Cerulean, which is published today.  Set in Houston over seven decades in the 20th century and beyond, the novel is a family...

Read More

Alan Brennert's Daughter of Moloka'i, about the Japanese-American internment, and a companion to the bestselling Moloka'i

Brennert’s Moloka’i (2003), which followed the life of Rachel Kalama, a native Hawaiian sent to the Kalaupapa leper colony on Moloka’i as a child, became a bestseller and word-of-mouth book-club hit. Since then, fans have been clamoring for...

Read More

Interview with Clarissa Harwood, author of Bear No Malice, set in Edwardian England

Clarissa Harwood's Bear No Malice is an entrancing historical novel set at the same time as her debut, Impossible Saints, but with the antagonist from that book, the arrogant Tom Cross, transformed into a hero -- and it works!  Kidnapped...

Read More

Espionage in full color: The Blue by Nancy Bilyeau, set in 18th-century England and France

“… Color is the next field of battle in the porcelain wars. He who is able to produce the most porcelain in this new revolutionary color of blue will control the market.” As we learn in The Blue, the color blue surrounds us in the natural world...

Read More

Historical fiction cover trend for 2019: bold colors that pop!

In putting together another visual preview post for 2019, I came upon some historical novel covers with bright colors and designs that refuse to be ignored.  And then I found a few more.  Here are ten, below.  You can make almost...

Read More

Review of A Murder by Any Name by Suzanne M. Wolfe, first in an Elizabethan spy mystery series

London is drenched with atmosphere and deadly intrigue in this debut entry in a new Elizabethan mystery series. The time is the 1570s. The body of Lady Cecily Carew, an innocent young lady-in-waiting to the queen, is found spread across the...

Read More

A dark American heritage: Kent Wascom's The New Inheritors, part of his Gulf Coast quartet

The third in a projected quartet, following Secessia (2015), Wascom’s latest literary saga is his strongest yet. Spanning the years 1890 to 1961, it focuses on two lovers and offers a skillful intermingling of character and place.After surviving...

Read More