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.

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.