A romance with Egypt: Katherine Kirkpatrick's To Chase the Glowing Hours

When your life’s most transfiguring experience occurs at age 21, where do you go from there? Do you spend your remaining years seeking to recapture its essence, or can you realistically move ahead, pursuing happiness in other directions?

And are you able to acknowledge the ethical quandaries tied to that shining moment and your family’s very involvement in it?

Pub. by Regal House (Sept. 2025)

Katherine Kirkpatrick’s To Chase the Glowing Hours addresses these themes beautifully in her portrayal of Lady Evelyn (Eve) Herbert, daughter of the Earl of Carnarvon, who was her father’s companion-assistant on his archaeological trips to Egypt.

In 1922, alerted by his longtime archaeologist, Howard Carter, to an impending major discovery, Carnarvon travels with Eve from their home at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England, to Cairo and then to the Valley of the Kings, where they’re present as the splendor of treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, buried underground for over three millennia, is revealed.

If the novel lingers over these descriptions, it’s no more than they deserve. As Eve glimpses a golden throne appear under her torchlight in the intense desert heat, sees a figurine’s glass eyes reflect as if alive, and detects the exquisite scent of oil preserved in alabaster vessels, we’re there alongside her, feeling her amazement and elation.

Eve also begins falling in love with the man who made it all happen. The handsome, much older Carter is notoriously moody and antisocial, and he treats her with alternating affection and formality. Of the two, only she is unaware that a relationship between them would never work.

The outside world soon intrudes in the form of a governmental inspector assigned to the excavation, Egyptian nationalists wanting the British ejected from their country, and a particularly pushy journalist (since Carnarvon gave his competitors at The Times an exclusive). Eve’s father, too, is obviously ill. In addition to having his costs recompensed, Carnarvon’s prior agreements regarding the tomb would have half the artifacts coming directly to him—which he’s counting on—a typical colonialist sentiment of the period.

An aristocrat eager to support her beloved father, Eve feels this is only fair; the idea of Egyptian treasures belonging solely to Egypt is utterly foreign. Her feelings shift at a sensible pace for someone of her upbringing. Once back at Highclere, she also starts having unexpected feelings for her brother’s friend, Brograve Beauchamp, a potential suitor who sees things differently.

In terms of excitement, Eve’s Downton Abbey-style life at Highclere (the model for the estate in the TV show) can’t compete with her adventures in Egypt, but that’s likely the point. Though her life in either locale is far from what most of us will ever experience ourselves, the medium of fiction brings us into her world as she copes with multiple losses and develops a mature outlook that will stand her well in the future.

To Chase the Glowing Hours was published by Regal House in September 2025, and I reviewed it from a NetGalley copy. This is one of several recent novels about Lady Eve, including Gill Paul's The Collector's Daughter (2021) and Marie Benedict's Daughter of Egypt (2026).

New Year, new platform - Reading the Past is now also on Substack

Best wishes for a good upcoming year, as well as great reading to all of you for 2026! Thanks for following my posts. I always enjoy hearing from everyone, so please feel free to comment or reply with your own thoughts and reading recommendations.

For the last few months, I’ve been pondering the future of Reading the Past and where I’d like to take it. While I appreciate that the platform has been free, the Blogspot/Blogger interface has become antiquated and limiting. I haven’t been able to update the layout for years without risking the loss of important content. It’s not mobile-friendly, and it takes messing with HTML to get pictures and text to center correctly. I’m also under no illusion that Google will keep Blogger around forever. In addition, the Mailchimp software I use for email subscribers, which stopped being free around a year after I adopted it, is functional, but more cumbersome than it needs to be for admins.

About a year ago, I opened an account at Substack since many of my email subscriptions were on that platform, and I wanted to keep track of them all. I claimed a domain there since it asked me for a name, but I didn’t do anything as far as publishing on Substack. Until I had some downtime over the recent holiday break and got to exploring the options a little further. Before, the idea of migrating to a new platform, maybe paying $$$ for a redesign, had been daunting… but according to their Help files, Substack could automate the migration from Blogger.

So I tried it, and within a few hours, most of my 1,969 posts, covering the past twenty years, were copied over to Substack. (All but 53 of them. I don’t know which 53 are missing, which will haunt me, but I’ll learn to live with it.) I love the colorful new layout and its ease of use for subscriber management, and I’m getting familiar with the posting process.

My posts, now on Substack

 

The plan is for my Substack to act as a mirror of the Blogger version of Reading the Past going forward, so if you subscribe via email, you now have options. If you prefer to stick with your current newsletter format, you’re good. It isn’t going away. But if you’d prefer to move to Substack, you can unsubscribe from this site (I won’t judge you) and sign up there at:

https://readingthepast.substack.com

 
If you’re already subscribed to Reading the Past on Substack, even though there wasn’t much to look at until a few days ago, thank you! For those currently subscribed to both, you'll probably want to unsub from one or the other since, apart from the post you’re reading now, you’ll get duplicate content in your inbox if you don’t. Either way, my posts will remain free to read.

Thanks again for reading, and wherever you plan to join me, I’m glad you’re here and look forward to sharing more reviews and historical fiction news in the coming year.

An intrepid female reporter investigates crime in Victorian Bristol in The Emerald Shawl

In 1864 Bristol, England, Miss Helen “Nelly” Brooks, first female reporter at the Courier, yearns to dig into meaty investigations but is limited to writing domestic pieces for the women’s page. So when she gets a note from a woman claiming knowledge of a “dreadful murder,” Nelly feels she’s struck gold.

Seamstress Eliza Morgan, huddled in a green shawl in the saloon bar where they meet, tells a fantastic story that feels like a scam: a prominent man’s wife and newborn have been killed, but she won’t reveal their identity to Nelly, or the woman’s secret diary, without being paid. Eliza also has a healthy appetite for gin and claims to have seen the murdered woman’s ghost.

Pub. by Boldwood Books 

The next day, Eliza’s body is found floating in the harbour: had she fallen in drunk, or was she offed by the man she claims was following her? Now there are three people for whom Nelly feels pressed to seek justice.

Douglas draws on Nellie Bly’s real-life story—Nelly’s American counterpart from a generation later—while creating a kaleidoscopic tour through Victorian fiction tropes. We have séances, body snatching, mistreatment of women by powerful men, Upstairs/Downstairs relationships, and a manor house full of secrets. Many character names (Mr. Snitch, Mrs. Augur) feel rather Dickensian. Unlike Miss Bly, who went undercover in an asylum, our Nelly has survived one, having been incarcerated for a decade by her parents after bearing her lover’s illegitimate daughter.

The novel is highly derivative of many sources, but when it homes in on the central mystery, the plot grabs hold, continuing through its surprising resolution. While reckless at times (accompanying your main suspect into his carriage isn’t super smart), Nelly’s determination to regain her child is laudable, and the setting—Bristol rather than the typical London—adds originality.

The Emerald Shawl was published by Boldwood Books (UK) in July.  Douglas is a prolific author of mysteries and Gothic novels, though this is the first of her books I've read.  

In the shadows of great art: Rembrandt's Promise by Barbara Leahy

This beautifully composed debut by Irish writer Leahy plunges readers into the world of Geertje Dircx, a nursemaid in Rembrandt’s household who became his lover after his wife’s death and challenged him in court after he abandoned his pledge to marry her. Geertje was treated poorly by her male contemporaries, her reputation tarnished while Rembrandt’s continued to rise. With richly textured detail, Leahy re-creates Geertje’s life and milieu, revealing her perspective and handling her story with the utmost respect.

It’s March 1642 when Geertje’s brother, Pieter, delivers her, a poor widow in her early thirties, to the wealthy artist’s Amsterdam home to tend to his infant son, Titus. She settles well into her new life, loving Titus as she might have loved her own son had he lived, and establishing a rapport with other servants. She also cares for her pretty, high-born mistress, who suffers from ill health.

Geertje admires her talented master from a distance, but after Rembrandt’s wife dies from tuberculosis three months later, she succumbs to the pull of connection and begins an affair with him, against her family’s warnings. She remains his secret mistress for years, believing his word that he’ll make her his wife, until a new maid, Hendrickje Stoffels, supplants her in his affections.

Notably, for a novel with a celebrated painter as a major figure, Rembrandt’s work isn’t centered. However, Geertje observes her surroundings with her own artistic eye. We feel the prickliness of her straw-filled bed tick, see the bustling trade along the canal, hear the regular chimes from the Zuiderkerk. She’s outwardly a reserved woman, making her heartbreak over the failed affair more profound.

Her female friends, including her outspoken, take-charge cousin Trijn, a wonderful character, provide moral support following all the betrayals she endures. Despite everything, Geertje remains determined to fight for what she’s owed. A transfixing read.

Rembrandt's Promise appeared from Eriu, the Dublin-based imprint of Bonnier Books UK, in March 2025.  I reviewed it from a personal copy for the Historical Novel Society.  Interestingly I have another novel on my shelves, still unread, which may serve as a counterpoint to this one: Rembrandt's Mirror by Kim Devereux, the story of Hendrickje Stoffels.  If you've read either, let me know what you think!

Lorena Hughes' The Queen of the Valley takes an entertaining trip to 1920s Colombia

Martin Sabater, owner of a cacao plantation near Cali, Colombia, in 1925, has disappeared after organizing a fundraising gala to support his old boarding school. His absence creates hardships for some, and opportunities for others.

After months pass without the cacao bean shipments that supply her chocolate shop, Maria Purificacíon de Lafont, called Puri, travels from Ecuador to find out what happened to her friend and former lover. Following circumstances on the way that are both terrible and kind of wacky, Puri arrives at her destination wearing a nun’s habit. She decides staying in disguise is her best hope for learning the truth.

Pub. by Kensington (2023)

In his absence, Martin’s hacienda has been transformed into a hospital, and everyone avoids conversations about him. Even more, Puri seems to have landed into a smoldering pit of tension, one stemming from jealousies, family resentments, and love affairs gone wrong. Living in and around the place are its purported new owner, Arab Colombian physician Farid Manzur; his sister Camila, an actual nun caring for cholera patients; and photographer Lucas Ferreira, boyhood friend of Martin and Farid, who still carries a torch for Camila.

That’s just a sampling of the goings-on in this entertaining concoction of a novel. Between all the relationships and flashbacks, keeping track of the nested subplots demands focused attention, so it doesn’t help that the three first-person voices (Puri, Lucas, and Camila) sound too similar. The energetic storyline keeps humming along, though, amid Puri’s snooping around and faking her way through nunhood. Plus, the earthquake that hit southwestern Colombia at the time literally shakes things up.

This was written as a sequel to the author’s The Spanish Daughter (see my review), which you don’t need to have read, but if you want the scoop on Puri and Martin’s past history, it’s worth checking out first. As always, Hughes mixes comedic and tragic moments without diminishing the impact of either. Life being what it is, there are times when it doesn’t work out, but you also get the sense she wants to give her characters happy endings whenever possible.

The Queen of the Valley was published by Kensington in 2023.  I'm continuing with my quest to review older NetGalley requests with the goal of getting my ratio up to 90%.  Slowly getting there!

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.