Canticle illuminates the life of a female religious visionary in medieval Flanders

In her debut, set in late 13th-century Flanders, Edwards brings to glowing life the story of a young woman consumed with desire for God and knowledge, a most unorthodox obsession.

Aleys, “thirteen years old and powerfully odd,” is the daughter of a wool producer in Damme, which sits near the trading center of Brugge (Bruges). She grows up enraptured by her mother’s illuminated psalter. After her Mama’s tragic death in childbirth, Aleys learns to read Dutch to help with the family business, but Aleys seeks to know Latin, the language of scripture. Through her friendship with Finn, a dyer’s son, she achieves this, and her education and Catholic fervor attract the attention of a Franciscan preacher, Friar Lukas, who wants a woman to establish a new order.

When her father forces her betrothal to a wealthy merchant to save their fortunes, Aleys runs away to Lukas. During her novitiate, he settles her with the Beguines, a group of lay religious women rumored to be wanton. Aleys’ vow of obedience chafes, since her soul yearns to fly.

The prologue foretells a devastating end for Aleys, drawing curiosity about what led her there. It takes talent to write accessibly about religious ecstasy and the impact of faith while preserving their mysteries, and Edwards achieves this through many gorgeously written passages, beginning with the opening scene.

Though slow in parts, the novel evokes a little-depicted yet decisive time, when people sought closeness to God through unauthorized translations, wandering Franciscans sought new recruits, and religious women—Beguine communities, mystics, and anchoresses—were carefully watched by church authorities.

Aleys’ journey from prideful teenager to visionary is powerfully moving as she discovers the rules of men are too narrow to admit her abilities. Fans of Mary Sharratt’s literary historical fiction about women and faith will especially welcome Edwards’ new novel.

Canticle was published this week by Spiegel & Grau; I reviewed it for the Historical Novel Society in November.  Read more about the background to the novel at the author's website.  Canticle made it to the LibraryReads list for December 2025 (the top 10 adult fiction and nonfiction picks chosen by public library staff from around the country). This would make a great book club pick.

What a laptop can't do: Why a notebook is essential to my storytelling life, a guest post from Ginny Kubitz Moyer

In today's essay, historical fiction author Ginny Kubitz Moyer explores the benefits and pleasures of writing down her thoughts longhand.  My thanks to Ginny for contributing her post!

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What a Laptop Can't Do: Why a Notebook is Essential to My Storytelling Life

Ginny Kubitz Moyer

More than thirty years ago, as a college student visiting London, I was thrilled to see the handwritten draft of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway on display. It was fascinating to see how Woolf had crossed out certain words and written others above them, trying out various options before settling on the right one. As I left the exhibit, it struck me that with the advent of personal computers, writing a first draft has changed dramatically. A sleek font now stands in for an author’s penmanship, and a delete button has erased the need for a handwritten strikethrough. I remember feeling a certain romantic nostalgia for the old days, when a notebook and pencil were the primary materials of an author’s toolkit.

Back then, I didn’t know that I’d end up being a novelist myself. I didn’t know that I’d depend upon a laptop to write my stories, that I’d be lost without its ease and convenience. But I also didn’t know that in addition to my trusty Mac, I would always—always!—have a notebook and pencil at the ready.

Although I don’t use it for drafting my novels, a notebook—specifically, one of those composition books with the speckled covers—is an essential part of my writing life. It’s a safe space dedicated to play, exploration, and writing without pressure. It’s the low-stakes laboratory where I can mix words and see what results.

For one thing, the notebook is where I warm up at the start of the writing day. In her famous guide The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron recommends a daily practice of three longhand “morning pages” to clear the air. I don’t always do three pages, but I do find it valuable to scribble a description of what the day is like, what I see out of my window, what’s in my thoughts. It’s a helpful transition from morning coffee into a creative frame of mind.

Notebooks are also where I figure out what will happen in my novels. This is essential, because one quirk of mine (shared by many authors) is that I cannot plot in advance. Try as I might, I can’t come up with a story idea in the abstract and draw up a scene outline before I begin. For better or worse, I have to write my way into it.

So I start with a general sense of who I think my main character will be. I’ll take a prompt from one of my writing books (usually something vague, like “write about a sunset”) and I’ll freewrite, with the character in mind. The more scenes I write, the more I get to know my protagonist and the setting. Other characters will appear in the freewrites, and conflicts too, and sometimes I’ll stumble upon insights that end up being the thematic heart of my story. It’s like being in a darkroom and watching a negative develop: from dim shadowy outlines, the details gradually emerge. Often it takes months of freewriting before I know the plot well enough to begin writing my first draft.

Sometimes I do this freewriting on my laptop for expediency’s sake, but more often I do it in my notebook. Writing by hand is liberating; the words don’t look perfect, so they don’t have to be perfect, not yet. When I’m fumbling my way into a new novel, I need to remove all expectation that it’ll be smooth and polished. Paper and pen are brilliant for that.

Pub. by She Writes Press, Dec. 2025

In the last few years, my notebooks have taken on another role as well: that of mood board or visual library. Because my genre is historical fiction, I’m constantly looking up clothing, interior design, and other images to spark my imagination. I have Pinterest boards for visuals that remind me of the time period or look like the characters, and that’s helpful, but not as helpful as having them before my eyes as I freewrite.

So a few years ago, it occurred to me that I could print out the pictures and paste them right into the notebooks. I love doing this, because it adds another layer of playfulness to my writing life. It’s fun to tap into my inner child by using scissors and glue, and once the images are there it’s like a little gift to turn the page and be greeted by a picture that I chose weeks before. (Sometimes, there’s an almost spooky connection between words and images: once I was writing about a character on a hill looking over the horizon, and turned the page to find a picture of a young girl standing on the top of a peak!)

I’ve got over twenty notebooks by now, and while they do take up a fair amount of bookshelf space, I can’t imagine my writing life without them. For something so modest and unassuming, those notebooks are precious. In that safe space between the speckled covers, anything can happen … and that’s the magic of being an author, in any generation.

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Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of the novels The Seeing Garden and A Golden Life (named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2024). Her upcoming novel, The World at Home, is published in December 2025. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can learn more at www.ginnymoyer.org.

The historical fiction cover art trend I wouldn't have predicted

When you think historical fiction, the color neon pink doesn't immediately spring to mind.  (Or green, purple, blue, or yellow.)  But there's no denying that the lettering on these novels makes a statement.  Their covers juxtapose historical images with electrically bright typefaces.

This design trend was noted in Elisabeth Egan's New York Times article (gift link) from June 21st, where the images were described as "the new signifiers of stylish literary fiction."  Unlike the examples in the article, the 11 novels below aren't necessarily all literary, and they don't all use old paintings in the background. Some could be described as dark historical fantasy, and the obvious color contrast jolts the senses, preparing the reader for the gothic thrills to be found within. Many are forthcoming for 2026, and there are likely more covers of a similar style in the works.

An acclaimed historical nonfiction author (Light of Days) focuses her fiction debut on the interlinked stories of two Jewish women in inter-war Warsaw, a city of artistic achievement and rising antisemitism.  Dutton, April 2026.

This gothic reimagining of Sheridan Le Fanu's classic vampire novel Carmilla, an inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula, is a sapphic romance set in Victorian times. Zando, February 2025.

A "propulsive novel of feminist resistance and rage" moving between modern Los Angeles and 1970s New York, following three generations of women, including some that take the law into their own hands under the moniker "Lady X."  Ballantine, May 2026.

Loyalty, friendship, and violent competition flourish among the girl gangs of late 1950s London in this debut novel. Atlantic (UK), February 2025.  

19th-century Mormon Utah goes gothic in another debut in which a young woman comes to live with her husband and her fellow sister-wives in a haunted Salt Lake City mansion; the characters are reportedly inspired by the author's family history.  Kensington, March 2026.

A young woman of mixed Indian-English heritage with an unerring sense of taste becomes a poison-taster for a French nobleman in the late 19th century, and he could really use her help.  Also a debut novel.  Berkley, June 2026.

Second in the Charlie James series from Australian novelist Manning, this historical mystery has its reporter heroine looking into the odd disappearance of an American tourist in pre-WWII Paris. Vintage, July 2026.

From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic: a seductive con artist encounters two women who complicate his treacherous plans in small-town Mexico in the 1940s.  Del Rey, July 2026.

In this twisty psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator, a young amnesiac at a psychiatric hospital in 1954 Virginia must decide whether to trust her dystopian visions of the future or the mental health treatment she's told she needs.  Henry Holt, August 2025.

Art, upscale crime, and the allure of wealth mix in this dual-time novel set in modern Paris and the world of Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law, Jo, who secured his legacy.  Dutton, July 2026.

Literary fiction and sapphic romance set in the Dutch Golden Age, featuring painter Maria van Oosterwijck and her family's servant, Gerta, who became a still-life painter in her own right.  Zando, September 2025.

Inspector Ian Rutledge returns in the post-WWI mystery novella A Christmas Witness

Can a story be haunted and heartwarming at the same time? Just like the holiday classic that inspired it, Charles Todd makes this unlikely pairing work in his latest entry in the Ian Rutledge series.

In late 1921, Rutledge, Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, gets asked by his superior to take on a case of the utmost sensitivity. Rutledge knows that as a single man with a recent promotion, work must take priority over a planned Christmas with family.

At his home in Kent, Lord Edward Braxton lies recovering after a head wound, claiming he was mown down by a horseman in foxhunting clothes who vanished right afterward. As a colonel in the Great War who served on the personal staff of Field Marshal Haig, a man nicknamed “the Butcher” for the millions of British casualties under his leadership, Braxton poses a challenge extending beyond his impatience and surliness.

As long-time series readers know, Rutledge suffers from PTSD in the form of night terrors and terrible guilt, embodied through the imagined voice of a soldier he was forced to execute for disobeying orders at the Somme. The oppressive shadow of WWI sits at the forefront of this series.

Following his investigation into the mysterious horseman, Rutledge begins wondering if Braxton’s injury affected his memory, but he can hardly ask him that. He senses that Braxton’s devoted wife, Louisa, is hiding something, too.

Rutledge is a methodical observer of his environs, as exemplified by his fine eye for architecture and the step-by-step directions on how his Rolls Royce operates. While interesting from a historical perspective, all these descriptions do slow the pacing down, and suspense is negligible.

Those who read for ongoing character development should be pleased, however. The ending, reflecting the spirit of the season, provides new understandings for both Rutledge and others.

The novella A Christmas Witness was published by The Mysterious Press, an imprint at its new home of Penzler Publishers, in October, and I reviewed it for the Historical Novel Society.  This story can stand alone easily.

Charles Todd, formerly a longtime mother-son writing team, is now authoring his novels solo. Alison McMahan, writing for the Historical Novels Review in May, examined the writing, publishing, and legal complications that arose after the death of Charles's mother, Caroline, in her feature article "The Lost Writing Partner."

In Circle of Days, Ken Follett imagines the lives of the people who built Stonehenge

Follett brings his storytelling prowess to another epic about a marvel of human engineering, illustrating answers to the major questions (who, what, when, why, and how?) about the construction of Stonehenge. 

Pub. by Grand Central (US/Can), Oct. 2025

Circle of Days reflects his trademark style: easily digestible prose combined with a large cast of recognizable yet interesting characters. He keeps the plot spinning with the challenges that different groups face, from severe drought and famine to deep-rooted antagonism, though an immense cooperative effort is what gets the job done.

The time is around 2500 BCE. Seft, the inquisitive youngest son in a flint-mining family, has the ingenuity to put elaborate plans into action. His first goals involve extricating himself from his boorish, abusive father and brothers, and getting to know Neen, an attractive woman from the herder clan. Neen’s younger sister, Joia, has curiosity of her own, which leads her to spy on the priestesses who conduct the seasonal rites at the Monument. These events bring together everyone living around the Great Plain – herders, farmers, woodlanders, flint-miners – for holy purposes (sun-worshipping) and more secular ones (friendship, feasting, sex).

The priestesses hold knowledge about the calendar and mathematics, and they use the Monument and ancestral songs to track the days of the year. But, as Joia recognizes, the wooden circle of the Monument is susceptible to destruction, and so it proves. After becoming a priestess herself, this female visionary ponders her objective of rebuilding it in stone, with Seft as the brains behind the operation, but many obstacles lie ahead… ones that make even survival uncertain.

Follett emphasizes throughout how sophisticated the cultures of these long-ago peoples must have been, both technologically and in the customs of their daily lives. He also imparts a message, not intrusive but definitely there, about how societies that treat women poorly will eventually face a reckoning.

This review first appeared in the Historical Novels Review in November.

Also of note: archaeologist Mike Pitts, one of the consultants for Circle of Days (and whose own nonfiction book about Stonehenge inspired Follett), has an article up on his website about the latest research about the building of the legendary monument, which Follett incorporated into his story.

Voting is open for the the Goodreads Choice Awards for 2025

The first round for the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for voting through November 23rd.  The twenty nominees are as follows. Settings range from the 16th century through contemporary times.

This award has a broad umbrella for "historical fiction."  What Kind of Paradise takes place in the mid-1990s (I was in grad school then), Taylor Jenkins Reid's Atmosphere in the 1980s, and Good Dirt is mostly contemporary with some shorter historical segments. This doesn't agree with my definition, but I use the award as a bellwether of shifts within the industry.  It's true that I've seen novels set in the 1990s and even in the 2000s promoted as historical fiction.

Reid is a frequent winner of this award; likewise Kristin Hannah, but she doesn't have a historical out this year. Still, Atmosphere has serious competition from Claire Leslie Hall's Broken Country, which was a NYT bestseller and a Reese's Book Club pick. The former has the edge, but they were both rated on Goodreads over 300,000 times apiece.

I also noted the cover designs. It's a bright, multicolored assortment.  Compare these to the nominees from ten years ago, which were fairly muted.  Also, how many of the above covers say "historical fiction" to you?  Many could easily be mistaken for contemporary fiction. The "headless woman" trend we'd seen for so long has nearly vanished here.

Below are the first round picks for the general Fiction category.  I confess I'd checked out a few of them originally to see what they were about, since the covers looked appropriate for historical fiction (The Names, A Guardian and a Thief, The Wild Dark Shore in particular), then discovered they weren't. They still interest me, though.

What does it mean that historical fiction seems to be losing its distinctive look?  Readers who prefer to stay in genre will need to be more clued in to publisher blurbs, reviews, and other sources of buzz.  But the mainstreaming process we're seeing with their covers could also broaden their audience. I welcome your thoughts.

Review of Elinor Florence's Finding Flora, a #1 Canadian bestseller about a woman's pioneer homesteading life

For anyone wanting to lose themselves in a big-hearted historical novel, this is your book. The pace never flags from the first sentence, as Flora Craigie leaps from a train chugging past the darkened Alberta landscape in 1905, in a desperate attempt to escape the husband who turned violent after their recent marriage.

An emigrant from the Scottish Highlands, with the accent to prove it, Flora has few possessions save a small valise, identification papers, her savings, and “secret treasure” sewn into her petticoat. She also has inner know-how and gumption, and in this gorgeous yet harsh country, that counts for a lot.

At first, she catches a lucky break. In Canada, unlike the United States, most single women are disallowed from claiming homesteads, but Flora manages to purchase a land scrip coupon from a sympathetic female veteran. With no knowledge of farming, and condescension—if not outright hostility—from local men (and one snooty woman), Flora has a tough row to hoe.

She holds the reader’s sympathy as she struggles with breaking the land, planting crops, and surviving the intensely frigid winter alone in her small cabin. Her closest neighbors are, coincidentally, also female, all with interesting backstories: a Welsh coal miner’s widow with three children, two former Boston schoolteachers seeking a secluded life together, and an aloof Métis horse trainer.

More established settlers derisively call their small community “Ladyville.” Flora has doubts about their commonalities, though the five women reclaim the term as they help each other endure. Then Flora learns her husband is on her trail.

The author’s fluid narration moves along swiftly as it explores the rewards and difficulties of pioneer life on the Canadian prairie, but the descriptions of the land as it reawakens in green every spring are worth lingering over. This #1 Canadian fiction bestseller is joyously recommended.

Finding Flora was published by Simon & Schuster (trade paperback) in Canada and the US in April.  I reviewed it for the Historical Novel Society originally.  Elinor Florence is also the author of Wildwood, a multi-period novel set in Alberta during pioneer days and contemporary times, and Bird's Eye View, set during WWII. Both are, according to the author's website, sold out and will be reissued soon.

In remembrance of Christopher (C.W.) Gortner

I wanted to write a post about Christopher (C. W.) Gortner, who passed away suddenly on October 25th, 2025, to the shock and sorrow of the literary community. My friend Christopher was such a vibrant presence that the news has been hard to take in.

He had several specialties within historical fiction: the Tudor era and the Renaissance, the setting for multiple novels and a spy thriller series; and controversial real-life women, like Catherine de Medici, Isabella of Castile, and Coco Chanel. He delved into their motivations convincingly, exploring their inner lives with delicate skill.

Some readers mistook his insights into these women’s characters for full admiration of everything they did – not true – and it’s to his credit that he didn’t shy away from history’s moral complexities.

He spoke frankly about the craziness of the publishing industry, had no tolerance for snobs or injustice, and was the go-to person when you wanted to hear or share the latest gossip or snark (he could snark like no one else). He took on Facebook battles with panache and gallantly stepped in to defend his friends when they were attacked by online trolls.

Christopher had been a reader of this blog from its early days and stopped by here many times as a contributor and commenter. In 2006, when historical fiction was flourishing, he wrote an essay about what he called “histo-romance” and how it related to his publishing journey. He explored the backdrop to The Tudor Secret (a later edition of his debut) and the history and legend of Marlene Dietrich, and we did interviews for The Queen’s Vow, about Isabella of Castile, and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici.

Christopher first dropped into my inbox in 2004, as an up-and-coming author with a spy/adventure thriller (The Secret Lion) not yet printed. He was in search of future review venues and a community of like-minded souls. Before long, he went from joining a new community to creating and sustaining it, drawing other authors into his large circle of friends.  He soon got a mainstream publishing deal also.  He devoted time to participating in reader forums, because he was an avid reader, too.

On the surface, he and I may not have seemed much alike. He was confidently extroverted and a witty and effortless public speaker. It was typical for booksellers to run out of copies of his books after he spoke on panels. He also had more fashionable taste in shoes than me.

But we quickly built a shared interest in history and bookishness, trading honest takes on old and new novels and the publishing industry. We also had the same experience of having the Cat Distribution System working overtime at our respective houses; he adored the animals he rescued and was a fierce advocate for animal rights.

And about the shoes – they almost caused problems once. We had met up in Chicago for a past ALA Midwinter, where he had a book signing. After dinner, he accompanied me to an evening ALA event. We left the venue and emerged into one of the worst blizzards ever to hit the city, the snow arriving earlier than expected. A moment to laugh about later, but at the time, he, with his expensive footwear, looked aghast. Rather than our walking a few blocks to meet my husband at the hotel, we grabbed a cab, stat, and the shoes survived.

A favorite memory: at the Historical Novel Society conference in Schaumburg in 2009, we were chatting in the hotel lobby when a Publishers Weekly reporter stopped by. Christopher gave her a hilarious 40-second interview about getting into character while writing about Juana of Castile during her pregnancy.

No notes, no prep, perfectly timed – how did he do it?

He had exacting standards for his own writing and advocated for himself in an industry that often seems capricious and unfair. As any author knows, the business of writing can be all-consuming, and there were days if not weeks when his work was the main topic of conversation… but he recognized this intense absorption and would joke about it.

On his Facebook page, he made a point of memorializing those who enriched his life: friends, colleagues, designers, movie stars.  Given his impact on the writing community, it's not surprising for so many people to be doing the same for him, though he left us much too soon. He is greatly missed.

Interview with Susan Coventry, author of the biographical novel Till Taught By Pain

Within historical fiction, Susan Coventry's Till Taught By Pain offers something unique: the little-known story of an accomplished and historically important American surgeon, the talented nurse he married, and how their relationship was affected by his hidden cocaine addiction. William Stewart Halsted, a native New Yorker born in 1852, was a founding professor at John Hopkins Hospital.  His wife Caroline Hampton, niece of a Confederate general, broke away from images of traditional Southern womanhood by training as a nurse up north.

Seen through the viewpoints of both husband and wife, this biographical novel is a fascinating story of their individual struggles and their partnership, all informed by the author's firsthand knowledge of medicine (she's a retired physician) and primary source research into her characters and the era. I read it avidly from start to finish. I was glad to have the opportunity to ask Susan some questions about her work.  Hope you'll enjoy reading this interview!

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Dr. William Stewart Halsted is no longer a household name, although Till Taught by Pain makes a convincing case that he should be. What had you learned about Halsted in med school, and what spurred you to look into his personal life in more depth?

We were taught very little history of medicine in medical school, so I’d never even heard his name until my pathology residency. While I was learning about breast cancer, someone made a passing reference to the Halsted method of radical mastectomy, mainly to point out that it had been discredited. It was a drastic and mutilating surgery, and I was given the impression that it was something of a crime committed against women way back in the past. But it’s really more nuanced than that. It was one step along a very long and ongoing path to treating cancer.

My interest in Halsted was sparked while reading a dual biography of Freud and Halsted, who both became addicted to cocaine while experimenting with the drug for medical purposes. (I’d initially picked up the book because I was curious about Freud’s addiction.) There is an anecdote in the book about how Halsted “invented” rubber gloves for his OR nurse (Caroline) who suffered a terrible dermatitis from the chemicals used for hand washing before surgery. It’s presented as a prelude to their courtship. That’s what grabbed my attention. The more I looked into this “Gloves of Love” story, the more complicated and fascinating both he and she became.

Pub. by Regal House (Nov. 4, 2025)

Halsted and Caroline come from very different backgrounds. I appreciated all the detail about their families, and how their upbringings added layers of interest and also complications to their partnership, considering they married just 25 years after the Civil War ended. Had you been interested in writing about late 19th-century America before conceptualizing this book?

It was more the other way around. I wasn’t specifically looking to write in this time and place, but Halsted’s story drew me into it. Their lifetimes spanned the Civil War through WWI, so there was a lot to digest. I had some built-in support from my husband, who is a historian focusing on the 19th century U.S., and my son, who is a high school history teacher, but writing in this time period taught me how little I knew about it. Fortunately, the research phase was fascinating, and I came out with way more interest in and knowledge of turn-of-the-20th century U.S. history than I had going in.

How did you choose the viewpoints, telling Halsted’s story in third person and Caroline’s in first?

I initially wrote the book from two third-person viewpoints. I’m much more comfortable writing in third person. But Caroline’s story was overwhelmed by Halsted’s, and she seemed to fade into the background. My wonderful developmental editor suggested switching to first person for both, but I couldn’t put myself convincingly in the head of a man in the throes of addiction and withdrawal. I needed him in third person. However, I found that writing Caroline’s viewpoint in the first person pulled her forward and brought her out of Halsted’s shadow.

The novel explores the notion of complicity and secrecy when it comes to addiction, and how Caroline – and Halsted’s close associates, too – acted to hide his drug dependence. Do you feel Caroline hasn’t been given sufficient credit in terms of ensuring her husband’s successful career? How complex was it to research a topic that was kept quiet during Halsted’s lifetime?

I definitely feel Caroline hasn’t been given enough credit! There isn’t much of substance about her in the historical record, but she was accounted to be a smart woman, able to hold her own with her brilliant husband. One problem I had researching her is that she is seen largely through the eyes of a few of his colleagues who considered her odd and anti-social, and that characterization has been carried forward as fact.

I don’t see how Halsted could have reached such heights and kept his addiction secret without Caroline’s support. Of course, that begs the question: should she have enabled his drug abuse? He was an impaired physician. Even she (in my fictional account) questions this.

It is complicated to research something that is currently accepted as true but that wasn’t common knowledge at the time of the story’s setting. Given how closely guarded a secret his addiction was, I do wonder how many people knew or suspected. It was fascinating to see how the secret was covered up and then uncovered over time. In letters exchanged by his colleagues, there are sometimes tantalizing hints, but no one comes out and names the problem. In a biography written shortly after his death, it is acknowledged that he had some trouble with cocaine early in his career, but it’s emphasized that he had completely recovered by the time he moved to Baltimore. Then as now, there is stigma attached to addiction so I imagine friends and colleagues who suspected it tried hard not to believe it. The question remains: Does this taint his legacy or make him more human, more complex?

author Susan Coventry

What are some favorite facts and stories you learned about from research into archival records?

My favorite finds in the archives are personal letters. Halsted is remembered as a reserved, private man with a biting wit. Yet in his letters, he is very polite and often playful. Perhaps even flirtatious. I have a letter that Harvey Cushing (another giant in the history of surgery) wrote to his fiancée, describing the aftermath of a carriage accident that injured Caroline, where he inserts a description of “the delicious coffee I’ve told you about and some bread and white unsalted butter. All very Halstedian.” To me, that comment demonstrated the admiration of a young mentee mixed with his amusement over his mentor’s quirks. I can “hear” him talking to his Katie, poking fun at the great surgeon. The young always feel slightly superior to their elders, don’t they?

Caroline’s letters were the most important to me, because they were revealing of her personality, and that was hard to get at otherwise. Very few of her letters are extant, unfortunately, and nothing touches on her husband’s addiction. But there are early letters to her aunt where she discusses her upcoming marriage that give a good glimpse into her state of mind. And my favorites are the rare surviving letters to Halsted, written when she was at their summer home in North Carolina while he was still back in Baltimore. She gives him day-to-day news. She gives him very explicit instructions on where to find the spaghetti she wants him to bring with him when he comes down. And in one, she adds a P.S., “Thank you for the candy. Don’t send anymore.” That really warmed my heart, to think of him sending her candy while they were apart, and her joking response that she shouldn’t be eating it. None of these anecdotal finds were earthshaking, but the big events of Halsted’s life, and Caroline’s, can be found in the biographies and histories of Johns Hopkins Hospital. For a historical novelist, the archives present a way to discover the personal side of the protagonists, and that helps to bring them to life.

You’ve written one YA novel about a 12th-century royal woman, a Regency romance series, and now literary biographical fiction set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which makes for a really interesting publishing journey! How did this come about – did your interests change over time, or was it more a matter of finding the right publishers for the subjects you wanted to write about? Do you have any suggestions for authors who want to explore a variety of styles and subjects in their historical fiction?

My interests changed over time.

Way, way back when I started writing, I was deeply into medieval history, particularly that of France and England. I didn’t intend to write a YA novel, but my kids were in their tweens/early teens at the time, so I was reading a lot of YA fiction with them, and that must have influenced the way I wrote.

In the years between the publication of The Queen’s Daughter (2010) and now, I wrote several other manuscripts that are now stuffed away in the drawer, but I came back to writing biographical fiction because I am especially drawn to novels that are firmly grounded in real people and events. At the same time, as a physician who’d been in the field a long time, I found myself more and more interested in the history of medicine. And when I came across Halsted and Caroline, I knew I wanted to write their story.

The romance series was something else entirely. I read romance to relax and escape. When the pandemic hit, I needed that escapism more than ever, so I decided to try writing romance as well as reading it. Counting on Love resulted. It was accepted by Dragonblade, and they publish series, not standalones, so I got to write three more novels to tell the love stories of each of the siblings. I suppose my suggestion for other authors who want to branch out and write in different styles or subgenres is to not chase trends but to write what you love to read. If you do want to take your writing in a different direction altogether, start by reading a lot in that genre or subgenre. And then, go for it!

~

Susan Coventry is a retired physician with a lifelong historical fiction obsession. Her first novel, The Queen’ s Daughter, was a YA historical set in the Middle Ages. She has since switched from YA to adult novels and moved on from medieval Europe to the turn-of- the-20th-century U.S. She lives in Louisville, KY with her historian husband, Brad Asher. Visit her website at https://susancoventry.com.

Kelly J. Goshorn's The Undercover Heiress of Brockton, set in 1905 Massachusetts, evokes strength and love amidst tragic events

In 1905 Brockton, Massachusetts, Miss Henrietta Maxwell is a busy, eccentric young woman. The tall, bespectacled daughter of a self-made Bostonian businessman with Brockton roots, she attends upscale garden parties and writes a city society column while living in a Brockton boardinghouse and writing hard-hitting news for the Brockton Enterprise in disguise as “Henry Mason.”

Until now, Etta successfully kept her secret under wraps, but Leo Eriksson, a local fireman, unmasks her identity (literally) after she falls from a tree while investigating corruption and arson—knocking both her and Leo to the ground. Impressed by her intelligence and gumption, Leo agrees to stay quiet about Etta’s clandestine career.

They begin courting, hoping their affection will surmount class barriers, but a devastating industrial accident complicates things. The sensational headlines and cold-hard-facts approach to her reporting make Leo question if she lacks empathy. Also, Etta fends off a rival reporter desperate to out-scoop her.

Goshorn sets her inspirational romance against the backdrop of the Grover Shoe Factory disaster, which killed dozens after the four-story building collapsed and caught fire after a boiler explosion. She transforms this little-known historical incident into a riveting human drama, successfully animating a large cast and illustrating many moments—taken from primary source accounts—of heroic rescue and inescapable tragedy.

Etta and Leo are both caring people whose personalities complement each other, and their journey back to one another is realistically complex (if a bit overlong) as they rely on their Christian faith while working their way out of a big misunderstanding.

Boston and Brockton are 25 miles apart, so it’s unclear why their social circles overlap so much, or how Etta juggles her multiple roles while traveling back and forth. But in all, this is a well-crafted novel, with a hopeful bent, which underscores the importance of industrial safety regulations.

The Grover Shoe Factory, Brockton, before the 1905 explosion
(Public domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Barbour published The Undercover Heiress of Brockton in August, and I reviewed it for August's Historical Novels Review.  Having lived and worked in southeastern Massachusetts, just south of Brockton, for six and a half years, I was excited when I read about the setting.  The Brockton Enterprise had been one of my local newspapers.  I'd never come across mention of the Grover Shoe Factory tragedy before, and the novel certainly puts you right there. It's part of a six-book inspirational romance series called Enduring Hope, each focusing on a different set of historical events.

Historical fiction preview for winter 2026

Looking ahead to the upcoming season, here are a dozen historical novels that caught my attention.

The award-winning Indian author's second novel covers themes of exploration, colonialism, and unexpected human connection in the story of three travelers seeing entry into Tibet in the mid-19th century, a time when it was closed to Europeans.  Random House, January 2026.

Three women travel from Chicago to Jamaica as part of dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham's visit to study the country's dances.  As in her previous historical novels (I've read three), Bryce illuminates episodes from history that deserve more attention. Kensington, February 2026.

Enticingly subtitled "a gothic novel of Old Shanghai," Chang's latest novel is set in Shanghai in 1911 and centers on two young women with secrets, one Chinese and one American, brought together in an ornate mansion with its own shadowy past.  William Morrow, February 2026.

Chaput writes historical fiction about badass women.  Her latest is a dual-timeline novel about an art historian in contemporary times and a female courtesan in 17th-century Venice who crafted illicit erotic art.  She Writes, February 2026.

The dark power of witchcraft meets the story of the Filles du Roi, young women sent to New France to become settlers' brides, in this debut novel set in 1670s Quebec, and written by a CBC Radio producer.  Simon & Schuster, January 2026.

A young woman in 1940s North Carolina finds herself trapped in an institution after being reported for supposed promiscuity, and finds she's hardly alone in her captivity there. A timely novel about the unjust repression of women, from a prolific author of Southern fiction (including The Saints of Swallow Hill).  Kensington, January 2026.

A British children's author's first work of adult historical fiction, When We Were Divided takes place in northern England, where two sisters find themselves on opposite sides during the English Civil War in the 1640s. Fox & Ink (UK), February 2026.

From a former BBC exec who's written both historical nonfiction (A Royal Experiment) and Austen-themed fiction (The Other Bennet Sister) comes a new novel based on historical figures: Lady Harriet Bessborough, sister of the scandal-prone Duchess of Devonshire, and her own scandalous affair with a younger nobleman. US release from Henry Holt, Jan. 2026.  In the UK, Mantle published it in August 2025.  

Johnson's third historical novel takes place in the aftermath of WWII, revolving around the abandoned children of African American GIs and local German women, and those who sought to help them. 37 Ink/Simon & Schuster, February 2026.

Award-winning Australian author Rose's new novel, her first to be published in the US for some time, involves family secrets, champagne, the French Revolution's aftermath, and a young woman's daring voyage to the other side of the world in the 1830s. It makes me curious how they all connect. Summit/Simon & Schuster, January 2026.

For fans of royal fiction, a pulled-from-history story you may not know. It evokes the time when countess Jacquette Gyldenstolpe fell in love with the heir to the Swedish throne, as well as the fallout from their romance.  She Writes. January 2026.

Unexpected love in unexpected places, as two young women--one on the run from her past, another a Jamaican orphan in a foreign land--fall in love while trying to survive the harsh circumstances of late 18th-century Nova Scotia.  Berkley, February 2026.

A woman alone: Allegra Goodman's Isola

Allegra Goodman’s newest novel shows how life as a young 16th-century noblewoman offers no guarantees. Not a life of wealth, not a prosperous marriage, not even a secure home.

For Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval, heiress to a chateau in Périgord in southwestern France, her intended future is swept away after her parents’ early deaths. She’s left dependent on the whims of her guardian, an older male relative who keeps himself at a distance.

Titled after the Italian word for “island,” glimpsed by the protagonist on an Italian map of the New World, Isola is an extraordinary tale of survival. Its plotline emerges from contradictions found in several historical fragments, including an account of the real woman written by Marguerite de Navarre, the king’s sister, in her Heptaméron. This is a literary space where historical fiction can take root and flourish, as it does in this book.

Marguerite’s guardian, maritime explorer Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval, was named the Lieutenant General of New France (now Canada) by the king, and he made the unorthodox decision to bring his ward with him on his Atlantic crossing in the 1540s, when he intended to establish a colony and promote the spread of Catholicism. After discovering her relationship with a young man aboard ship, he marooned the couple, along with her elderly servant, on a small island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Years later, Marguerite was rescued, alone, and brought back to France. What must she have endured?

From the first few pages, the modern world dissolves, and we enter the viewpoint of Marguerite, who narrates her story from childhood on. She’s raised by her devoted nurse, Damienne, who always reminds Marguerite about the appropriate conduct for a girl of high birth. Marguerite befriends her teacher’s daughter, Claire D’Artois, whose calm gentility serves as a foil for her impulsiveness and curiosity, and they learn from one another.

We’re alongside Marguerite as she and Claire admire the feminine roles within Christine de Pizan’s City of Ladies, and we feel her confusion when they’re moved to her chateau’s North Tower after a merchant family arrives as tenants. It seems Roberval, in charge of Marguerite’s finances, has mortgaged her home to cover his own losses.

A responsible guardian would arrange his ward’s respectable marriage with the son of a noble family, but this doesn’t describe Roberval. In him, Goodman creates a multifaceted and frighteningly effective villain. He is enigmatic, unpredictable, difficult to please, and ever-watchful for fault.

So unthinkable (to any rational person) is his decision to abandon Marguerite and the man she loves on a deserted island that we feel a lurch of shock when it happens, even though we know it’s coming. Here she develops skills she’d never thought of doing herself. She draws on newfound strength—and throw off the ladylike behavior that Damienne still insists on—to feed herself and stay alive through the seasons, from the brilliant autumns through the unsparing winters and back out again. Descriptions of the terrible cold and isolation are particularly visceral: “All was white, and all was emptiness.”

Isola isn’t what you’d expect from biographical fiction about a young woman of privilege in the 1500s. “If I was in danger here,” she thinks about her island, “so I had been at home. If I could not choose my dwelling place, that had been the case before.” We can feel her self-awareness grow alongside her strength, and by the time she returns to France, which is as class-conscious as it ever was, she is forever changed by her unusual taste of unrestricted freedom.

Isola was published by The Dial Press/Penguin Random House in February 2025.

A Different Kind of Three-Act Structure: Writing my Main Character as a Child, a Young Woman, and an Elderly Grandmother, an essay by Kristen Loesch

I'm glad to be featuring Kristen Loesch here today with an essay on a unique variation of the multi-period novel.  Her second work of historical fiction, The Hong Kong Widow, is out today from Allison & Busby (and from Berkley in the USA). As a gothic thriller featuring séances and a heroine who can see ghosts, it sounds ideal for this time of year.

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A Different Kind of Three-Act Structure:

Writing my Main Character as a Child, a Young Woman, and an Elderly Grandmother

by Kristen Loesch

In my second novel, The Hong Kong Widow, we meet one character, Mei, at three different periods of her life: As a child growing up in 1930s Shanghai; as a young refugee in 1950s Hong Kong; and as an elderly grandmother in modern-day America.

In each of these three timelines, she has one goal: Seven-year-old Mei in Shanghai wants to find her missing mother. Twenty-something Mei in Hong Kong is hell-bent on revenge, and enters a séance competition at a haunted house hosted by the wife of the man who once destroyed her life. Elderly Mei in America wants the truth about the final night of that long-ago séance competition to come to light.

Pub. by Allison & Busby (Oct. 2025)

The best feeling, when you’re reading a dual or multi-timeline historical novel, is when the narratives come together seamlessly. Not only do they make sense, presented as one story, but you get the feeling that actually, they couldn’t exist without one another. Ever since reading my first Kate Morton novel, I have been drawn to that kind of historical fiction: Usually one timeline is contemporary, in the POV of a present-day protagonist, and the other is historical, but I’ve increasingly seen multi-timeline novels in which all the timelines are historical, set at different points in the past. Either way, when this is done well, it’s breathtaking; when it’s done badly, the reader ends up more deeply invested in one timeline and one protagonist over the other. The writer, therefore, takes a risk by splitting up the narrative in this way, in the hopes of achieving that perfect plait, one timeline woven neatly into the next, all the way to the end. It is certainly what I hoped to achieve in my debut novel, The Porcelain Doll.

But in The Hong Kong Widow, all three timelines are written from the perspective of the same character. And although Mei is the same person across all three timelines, in many ways she’s also a very different person. (It’s almost like I was trying to make things harder on myself!)

When I first read Emma Donoghue’s Room, I was struck by the storytelling power of a young child’s perspective, and I knew that I would one day want to try it myself. Writing Mei as a child was an eye-opening experience for me as a writer. Although Little Mei is growing up in 1930s China, on the eve of the Japanese invasion, and her family life is no less tumultuous, I wanted her to have a wondrous innocence about her, and a quirky sense of humor. I wanted her to notice things that other people wouldn’t. I wanted her to be open and trusting and vulnerable, but also incredibly strong. I thought it was going to be so much more difficult than it was: As it turned out, Little Mei has such a distinctive voice, such a unique way of looking at the world, that whenever I wrote from her perspective, it felt effortless; it simply flowed. I never had to stop and wonder: What would this character be feeling right now? Or why does this character actually want this; why are they doing this? (I did, however, try to be careful with the vocabulary she used!)

Young Woman Mei was the greatest challenge.

In the 1950s, Mei is no longer quirky and innocent; she is lost and traumatized. As a character, she is in tremendous pain, and this pain clouds her judgement, her perspective, her every thought. She wants revenge, but she’s never considered what that revenge actually means, or what she might do afterwards. This timeline also contains the majority of the spooky, supernatural happenings in the novel; this is Mei at her most haunted, literally and figuratively. To reflect the fact that she’s largely forgotten who she is, I decided to write her in the third person. (Little Mei and elderly Mei are both written in the first person.) My aim was not only to show how far removed she is from her true self, because she is consumed by pain and hatred, but also to help the reader differentiate more easily between timelines!

Elderly Mei, who is a mother and a grandmother in 2015 Seattle, had to be both a combination of these two previous versions of Mei, but she also had to be more than that. In a way, elderly Mei is more like Little Mei; she knows who she is and she’s comfortable with who she is. She isn’t defined by her own pain, the way that 1950s Mei is. She’s moved on. But if anything, she’s moved on too far. She’s repressed her memories of the past. She refuses to believe that anything that is painful could be worth revisiting. She’s in denial of a large part of her own history, and has strived unsuccessfully to pretend that it doesn’t even exist. So while I wanted elderly Mei to come across as wise, and experienced, and self-aware, I also wanted her to need something, to be missing something, to have her own journey to embark upon.

I’m not sure I will ever write another novel the way I wrote The Hong Kong Widow. I’m not sure there will ever be another protagonist quite like Mei. The structural choices I made for this book presented a unique challenge, and a unique sense of accomplishment at the end. I would love to hear from any readers out there: Which version of Mei did you prefer? Which one spoke to you the most? And why do you think that was?

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Kristen Loesch holds a BA in History, as well as a Master’s degree in Slavonic Studies from the University of Cambridge. Her debut historical novel, The Porcelain Doll, was shortlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award and was a finalist for the Edgar Award. She lives in Switzerland. 

Elizabeth A. Tucker's The Pale Flesh of Wood is a mesmerizing American family saga

In the northern California hills in 1953, seven-year-old Lyla Hawkins nervously climbs her grandmother’s live oak to hang a tire swing from its heavy branches, having been encouraged—then bullied—into the task by her father, Charles, a charming and troubled WWII vet. Three years later, Charles hangs himself from the rope, leaving his family distraught, all wondering what motivated him and whether they bear any blame.

Pub. by She Writes Press (2025)

The subject matter admittedly sounds grim. But in her debut novel, a saga spanning a total of fifty years on both sides of the tragedy, Tucker creates such intimacy with her characters to make readers deeply invested in their lives. Each person becomes sympathetic and challenging, in turn, depending on whether we’re seeing them from within or from the outside.

Caroline, Lyla’s grandmother, is a tall, imposing woman unforgiving of weakness, which included her son’s decision to go AWOL overseas. Louise, Caroline’s daughter-in-law, misses her late husband desperately, and as Lyla grows up, their relationship becomes fraught. And while Charles adores his daughter, the personal demons spurring his recklessness get in the way.

Tucker is superb at writing scenes that evoke emotion. Charles’s post-Thanksgiving drive with Lyla to the coast on the mountain highway, radio blasting and wind rushing through their hair, starts out exciting but soon turns terrifying. Always aware of Caroline’s meanness, especially toward her dad, young Lyla knows she’ll be punished for stealing Caroline’s cherished porcelain doll—which provokes considerable suspense about whether she’ll be caught.

Because of the close focus on family dynamics, the narrative falters when this connection is broken. We learn about some important life events via offhand comments long after they occurred, which feels disconcerting. Despite these occasional slips, the story mesmerizes, leaving characters that remain with us long after it ends.

I originally reviewed this book from an ePub copy for the Historical Novels Review's August issue. It's been a few months since I read it, and multiple scenes still stick in my mind. Adult novels seen partly from a child's perspective don't always work for me, though this one did.  I also love the cover design.

Tamar Shapiro's Restitution delves into secrets, exile, and reunification in a family story about late 20th-century German history

For most of 1989, my husband was living in Germany, working for a private company after years of being stationed with the military there. He returned home to the US two days before the Berlin Wall came down. “I missed it by that much,” he told me, imagining the wild party that spilled through the streets. There had been obvious rumblings of political change earlier, but nobody knew exactly when it would happen.

For those whose lives it touched, November 9, 1989, has become a day of flashbulb memories, one marking the beginning of the Iron Curtain’s dismantling – a time of elation and the celebration of freedom. For the family at the center of Tamar Shapiro’s gripping debut Restitution, whose Oma and Opa (grandmother and grandfather) had fled East Germany for the West in the '50s, the date is indeed joyful, as well as devastating for more personal reasons.

The countries’ reintegration also brings complications for these people, and the novel kept me following how and why they arose.

The story is narrated by Kate Porter beginning in 2005, as she and her husband and daughter travel from central Illinois to New England to visit her brother, Martin, after fifteen years’ estrangement. In addition to the time around reunification, he recalls the childhood summers they'd spent at their grandparents’ home at the Bodensee (Lake Constance); the shock of their Opa’s death in ’73; and a visit to a lawyer in 1991 that led to the siblings’ long mutual silence. Another splintering in a family with a long history of separations and secrets.

In July 1990, with the borders reopened, the family members decide to return to Grimma, the former East German town where their late grandparents had lived. Their Opa was a natural storyteller, but none of his stories, oddly, involved their original home. Which, as they learn after they arrive, has been occupied by a middle-aged couple, Greta Schultz and her brusque husband, Klaus, for decades.

Afterward, Martin lets them know there are procedures for them to possibly reclaim their long-lost property. Should they?

About half the novel takes place in the 1970s and prior, between Kate’s memories and the recollections of her mother and aunt. The clear prose is unshowy yet thoughtfully worded. The many shifts in timeframe are handled smoothly, although there are so many that whenever I had to take a break from reading, I needed to re-orient myself by checking the year(s) at the start of each chapter. The German settings are so precise, also, that I wondered why the Porters’ Illinois home city went unnamed. (Based on landmarks familiar to me, they’re from the Champaign area.)

Fateful decisions lead to terrible secrets, and how and why they’re kept – and later revealed – says much about these characters. Kate and Martin’s sibling relationship, especially how patterns formed in childhood can be either nostalgic or vexing, feels honest and at times painfully real. Like Kate, I often found Martin irritating, but he became more understandable with greater context.

Anyone who enjoys interlocking mysteries mixed with family dynamics and history’s impact on individuals – both visible and not – will find much worth pondering. Restitution is a moving chronicle of the reverberation of choices over time, and of the importance of recognizing the past while reuniting divided countries and divided lives.

Restitution will be published next week by Regal House; I read it from a NetGalley copy.

Morgan Jerkins' Zeal is an engrossing, unpredictable story of Black love, family, and freedom

Zeal is an engrossing tale of a heartfelt love born during slavery, and how the couple’s descendants have the potential to embody their forebears’ greatest dreams—if they can get past some messy obstacles.

The novel opens on a moonlit evening in Manhattan, as Oliver Benjamin and Ardelia Gibbs celebrate their engagement with relatives and friends at an elegant party. With his parents’ blessing, Oliver gifts Ardelia a precious heirloom: a poetic, heartfelt letter dated October 1865, written by his ancestor Tirzah Ambrose to her beloved, Harrison, from whom she was separated during wartime.

Over the next 150 years, their families’ stories unfold, beginning just after the Civil War. Wearing a Union soldier’s blue uniform, Harrison returns to the plantation in Natchez, Mississippi, where they had been enslaved, only to discover the site in ruins and Tirzah nowhere to be found. Now residing in Shreveport, Louisiana, Tirzah has a kind preacher looking out for her welfare, but she never gives up hope of reuniting with Harrison.

Jerkins is a superb storyteller who nimbly uses a vast swath of American history for her canvas, from the Freedmen’s Bureaus that supported the formerly enslaved, the Black Codes that legalized discrimination, the Great Migration, and much more… leading through the isolation of the Covid pandemic. Revealing specifics of the plot risks spoilers; the novel is best experienced through the author’s own words.

Covering impressive geographic and emotional ground, she explores her strong-minded characters’ choices as they pursue romantic liaisons and the freedom to live as they wish, sometimes getting in their own way. The trauma they encounter is laid bare on the page, and the love they share echoes even more strongly. An unforgettable story of ancestral legacies and the long journey to understand and overcome them.

Zeal was published by Harper in the US, Canada, and the UK earlier this year. My review originally appeared in the Historical Novels Review.  If you're in the US, you can get a copy on Kindle for $1.99 during the month of September.  It's well worth it!

Stitching Together the Novel Research, an essay by Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Isabela's Way

I love how Barbara Stark-Nemon's essay about historical research incorporates embroidery, both thematically and literally.  Her new novel, Isabela's Way, is published tomorrow.

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Stitching Together the Novel Research

Barbara Stark-Nemon

Anyone who knows me well has learned that I love novel research, and in the course of ten years of doing author talks and interviews, one of the most frequent questions I’m asked is how and where I conduct my book research. My new novel, Isabela’s Way, takes place in early 17th-century Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, and required extensive research involving travel, reading and experiential learning.

Isabela, my main character, is a young embroideress in Portugal, and her embroidery becomes crucial to the novel’s plot. A dear friend gifted me with a book that grabbed my attention and informed the embroidery elements in the novel. Its title alone intrigued me —Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle, by Clare Hunter. 

Hunter’s book tells the story of embroidery in Europe, and traces the development of stitchery entwined over centuries with the history of the people and places where embroidery was cultivated. It also tells of the plants that found their way into fabrics, dyes, thread and decoration starting in the 10th century. Inevitably the history of embroiderers became the history of the women who embroidered, the perfect background information I needed to move forward with Isabela’s Way.

Women used needlework to claim their place in the world, “stitching down political comment or feminist complaint, documenting their experience through domestic sewing.” During the 16th and 17th centuries, “embroidery was one of the most precious forms of …communication, valued as a transmitter of intellect and emotion - when it was a conversation between people and their God, the church and its congregation, ruler and subjects. Needlework had power and embroiderers had value.”

A writer knows when she’s found a deep source of material when every page requires notes! I was particularly interested, in Threads of Life, in the story of Mary Queen of Scots, whose complicated life between Scotland and France and her sovereignty fight with Elizabeth I of England is a colorful part of history. Mary’s son James became king of England during the time my novel takes place. Hunter tells us that Mary was an expert embroideress, an art she learned in France where embroidery had moved from monasteries to castles and into home production. For all the years that Mary was kept captive because of her threat to the English crown, she embroidered coded messages in gifts of clothing, in her own ensembles and in banners displayed in royal and public settings. These beautifully stitched items subtly reflected her demands to be freed, her devout Catholic faith, her political rivalry with Elizabeth and her romantic interests. I borrowed this concept and adapted it to Isabela’s refugee story.

Another form of research I used heavily for Isabela’s Way involved trips to museums on three continents to view early 17th-century paintings and textiles. I wanted to see what clothing and other embroidered textiles were represented, and when possible, to see the textiles themselves. I also wanted a sense of rooms in 17th-century homes, furnishings, cooking and eating implements and landscapes. I haunted the old historic parts of the European cities and countryside where my story took place, imagining Isabela stitching her way with the sights and smells of the local landscapes.

Because I like many forms of fiber art—I quilt, knit, crochet and sew—I was drawn to the study of embroidery personally, and decided to “try my hand” at it! My wonderful book cover designer incorporated embroidery-like images into the cover for Isabela’s Way and (perhaps unwisely) I determined to recreate that cover as an embroidered piece. That decision opened up a whole new world of local embroiderers, international organizations with vast stitch banks and textile history over hundreds of years.

Stitching the book cover has been a challenge, a joy, and a meditation on slow art. I newly appreciate the skill required to do embroidery well, the complexity of the design process, and the exacting patience embroiderers must embrace. I have experienced (along with occasional frustration!) the quiet thrill of bringing color and texture to an outlined design. Finally, it’s been a delightful way to deepen my understanding of my main character, Isabela!

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Barbara Stark-Nemon is the award-winning author of short stories, essays, the historical novel Even in Darkness, and the contemporary novel Hard Cider. Her historical novel Isabela’s Way is published in September 2025. Barbara lives, writes, swims, cycles, and does fiber art in Ann Arbor and Northport, MI.