A Leg to Stand On, a guest post by Nell Joslin, author of Measure of Devotion

Nell Joslin, author of the Civil War-era novel Measure of Devotion (Regal House, May 2025). contributes a short essay about how validation for one's writing choices can arrive in unexpected ways.  

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A Leg to Stand On

Nell Joslin

In the fall of 2015, I had been working on Measure of Devotion off and on for more than two years and was feeling discouraged about my ability to write anything worthwhile. It was a difficult time in general; not long before, I had lost my father and I was caring for my mother, then in the final year of her life.

Looking for inspiration, I decided to attend a Civil War reenactment of the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. I scrounged up enough enthusiasm to buy a period costume, register as a spectator, and find a place to stay in the area near Chattanooga where the events would take place. I even paid for a ticket to the “ball” planned for the evening after the “battles.”

I soon saw that it was a mistake to think the reenactment would be helpful. The solitary nature of this jaunt, combined with my gloomy mood, piled loneliness on top of self-doubt. The war reenactors seemed even more wooden to me than the characters in my novel. And although many others were similarly attired, I felt foolish and awkward in my 1860s dress and shawl.



My characters are very loosely based on some much-revered ancestors. One of my great-grandfathers was gravely wounded at the hip in the Chattanooga area in 1863, but there most of his similarity with my book’s Civil War soldier ended. I had plucked the tiniest thread of the real story and taken it in a completely new direction. I was inventing wholly new people who did some very surprising—shocking—things. In the attempt to be creative, was I simply disrespectful? Blasphemous?

On the last evening of my visit in the reenactment area, I took a late afternoon walk along the little-traveled gravel road that ran in front of my cabin, trying to decide whether to begin the eight-hour drive back home or wait until the following morning.

I had been looking up at the darkening sky through the bare branches of trees, but suddenly something made me look down at my feet. There by the side of the road was the leg of a GI-Joe-type doll. No sign of the rest of the doll’s body, no other litter on the ground in this woodsy, tranquil setting.



I picked the leg up. The area around the hip bore a black smudge and the “ligament” which had attached it to the body was severed.

This, I decided, was a seal of affirmation. “Honey, this story is yours,” my long-ago great-grandfather was telling me. “You go ahead and write it any way you like.” And by golly, I would.

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NELL JOSLIN is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina and received her MFA from North Carolina State University. Besides a fiction writer, she has been a public school teacher, medical librarian, copy editor, freelance journalist, stay-at-home mom and attorney (although not all at the same time). She currently lives in Raleigh. For more details, please see: Nell Joslin – Measure of Devotion

Review of Nicola Cornick's The Secrets of the Rose, set during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715

Nicola Cornick writes dual-period novels about unjustly forgotten women where both narrative strands compel equally, which doesn’t happen often. Fans of Mary Stewart (Touch Not the Cat in particular), Anya Seton’s Devil Water, and Susanna Kearsley’s 18th-century epics will relish her latest, which tells the parallel stories of purported Jacobite heroine Dorothy Forster and a modern biographer who grew up in Dorothy’s family home.

Hannah Armstrong returns to Bamburgh Hall in Northumberland with plans to research local heroine Grace Darling but gets more intrigued by Dorothy, especially after finding Dorothy’s enigmatic portrait at the Hall, surrounded by Jacobite motifs. Hannah’s stepmother, Diana, initially encourages her interest in Dorothy but oddly changes her mind later. According to legend, Dorothy took a late-night ride to London to liberate her Jacobite brother from prison and held a fake funeral for him, abetting his escape, and Hannah wonders if this daring adventure was true.

In 1715, Dorothy, who oversees her ill father’s household, gets fed up with male power games after learning about a planned Jacobite rebellion that has her eldest brother, Tom, among the plotters. She foresees only disaster and fears retribution. A touch of mysticism enhances the rich atmosphere. In her youth, Dorothy shared a telepathic bond with a boy whose identity she never knew. Possibly it was the Earl of Derwentwater, her charming near-betrothed, or maybe it was blacksmith John Armstrong.

Various layers of Bamburgh’s thrilling history reveal themselves here, dating from periods before Uhtred’s Bebbanburgh through the present. Among other sites, we get to visit the imposing castle and rocky coastline, with gorgeous views of the Farne Islands in the distance. Both protagonists have haunting, slow-burning love stories, but the 1715 Rising itself is not romanticized. Rather, Cornick demonstrates the courage of women forced to confront turmoil caused by foolish men.

The Secrets of the Rose was published by Boldwood Books in February; I reviewed it from NetGalley for May's Historical Novels Review. Among the other novels by Nicola Cornick I've reviewed here are The Phantom Tree and The Other Gwyn Girl, and I'd interviewed the author about her House of Shadows in 2015.  I'm eager to see what she'll be writing about next.

Photos of Bamburgh Castle (2014), by Mark Johnson

It was a treat to read more about the history surrounding Bamburgh in Northumberland after having visited there in 2014. The photos just above were taken by my husband, and there are some more in his Flickr album. One day I hope to go back!

Rita Woods' The Edge of Yesterday is a riveting time-travel novel set in the Motor City

Set in Detroit in the present and a century earlier, Rita Woods’ gripping timeslip novel explores two people’s yearnings for a different future, the inexplicable link they share, and the ripple effects of seemingly small changes. In short: the more you mess with time, the more it’ll mess with you.

Formerly a member of a New York-based Black ballet company, Greer McKinney has returned with her husband, Bass, to Detroit after distressing neurological symptoms made her quit working. Temporarily staying in one of her wealthy in-laws’ properties, Greer despairs over her life amid escalating arguments with Bass.

Then one day, while on her way to visit a friend, she gets briefly zapped into the past – the special effects feel disorientingly real – and glimpses a bustling street scene and a tall man in old-fashioned clothing.

In 1925, Dr. Montgomery “Monty” Gray is a member of the “Talented Tenth,” a group of well-educated, socially aware Black leaders. With this role comes responsibilities, including marrying his best friend Aggie, a woman within his class. Racial strife is heating up, and when a gangster crashes their engagement party, challenging people to rise up against whites who terrorize African Americans who cross the color line, Monty foresees a terrible reckoning.

Greer’s startling trips back to 1925, which she comes to seek out, are mutually valued. Monty is amazed to learn a Black man will be President, while Greer’s health improves every time she returns home to 2025. Problem is, other aspects of her life change, too.

Both storylines are individually interesting, and the plot and atmosphere turn electric when they intersect. One small criticism: the book wraps up too quickly. While illustrating the vitality of the early 20th-century Black Bottom-Paradise Valley neighborhood, which was demolished decades later for redevelopment, Woods delivers an exciting work of speculative fiction with many hard-to-predict twists.

The Edge of Yesterday was published by Forge in late April, and I reviewed it for May's Historical Novels Review. I've heard little about this novel in historical fiction circles, and it's worth checking out!  Read more about the history of Paradise Valley in the online Encyclopedia of Detroit and in the Black Bottom Digital Archive.  I'd previously reviewed the author's debut, Remembrance, after its publication in 2020.

The spirit and the flesh: Emily Maguire's Rapture

Emily Maguire’s Rapture is an entrancing vision of a woman who unexpectedly rises to the height of influence in an exclusively male realm: the Roman Catholic church in the early Middle Ages.

This new reinterpretation of the legend of Pope Joan explores the meanings of its title – spiritual, intellectual, and physical fulfillment – in the life of its subject, who finds she can’t deny her humanity and womanhood (“Oh, tiresome, greedy, needful body!”) while satisfying her cravings for scholarly nourishment. 

The book is subdivided into sections whose headings come from a 13th-century chronicle, and I appreciated this nod to the limited record of her perhaps-existence. In 820s Mainz in the Frankish realm, Agnes, daughter of a man known as the English Priest and a pagan woman who died in childbirth, grows up absorbing the discussions in her father’s household, and the contents of his vast library, while viewing the wonders of nature.

The arrival of a young Benedictine monk, Brother Randulf, the most talented scribe at the Abbey of Fulda, shakes up her world. To her astonishment and pleasure, he acknowledges her thoughts have value and treats her like an equal. After her father’s death, Agnes asks him to take her to Fulda, in male disguise, so she can contemplate her learnings at leisure… or so she hopes.

This begins a deception that takes her from Fulda to the outskirts of Athens and at last to Rome, where her growing reputation leads her to become the right hand of Pope Leo IV. The violent impact of the Carolingian Civil War, when Charlemagne’s grandsons battled for control of land and empire, comes through well, as does the incessant politicking (which Agnes dislikes) within the pope’s inner circle.

Spiritually rich without being preachy or dense with theological arguments, the writing is a delight to read. It's an excellent vehicle for Agnes’s dramatic journey. We’re treated throughout to Agnes’s wise observations on her patriarchal environment, thanks to her unique viewpoint. “It is a revelation,” she thinks about the tedious rules and enforced humility of monastery life, “that these men struggle and need constant correcting in order to live as women must.” The ending, which fits with the Pope Joan legend, is transcendent.

Rapture was published by Sceptre in the UK, and by Allen & Unwin in Australia. In the US, the UK edition is sold on Kindle, which is how I purchased my copy. My choice to read this novel was inspired by recent news on papal history following the death of Pope Francis, as well as (related) the film Conclave, which I saw on Prime last weekend. I suspect Rapture will get an unintentional boost in readership thanks to world events!

The Director, inspired by a true story, details one man's moral compromises in artistic creation

Smarting after a Hollywood flop, Austrian-born director G. W. Pabst, a Weimar cinema pioneer, returned to Europe. Trapped in Austria while visiting his mother when WWII broke out, he became enmeshed in Goebbels’ propaganda machine.

Kehlmann (Tyll, 2020) uses this outline to construct a dark account of one man’s descent into fascist complicity, a path strewn with surrealistic scenarios and chilling self-justifications in favor of art.

The perspective shifts with each chapter, which keeps readers hyper-focused on each nightmarish step. The family’s Nazi-sympathizing caretaker at their Austrian home tyrannizes them; Pabst’s son Jakob begins bullying others. Pabst’s despairing wife, Trude, reluctantly joins an oppressive book club.

Ambitious yet passive, Pabst voices objections to working for the Reich but soon falls into line. “But once you get used to it and know the rules,” a colleague tells him, “you feel almost free.” The prologue foreshadows a mystery about his making of the film The Molander Case, and the reveal is shocking. 

While it takes many fictional liberties, Kehlmann’s novel is purposefully unnerving and timely.

The Director, translated by Ross Benjamin, will be published by Simon & Schuster/Summit Books on May 6th, and I wrote this review for the April issue of Booklist.

The original German title is Lichtspiel ("Light-Play"), an older term used to refer to motion pictures, but which also has symbolic meaning for this novel. You can read an illuminating interview with Kehlmann at Hungarian Literature Online. As hinted in the review and in the interview, if you're expecting a fictional biography of Pabst, be aware that the storyline does diverge from his real life (and his family's) in multiple instances. 

Bits and pieces of historical fiction news

Here are some articles and other news items that caught my attention in the last week.

The 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction shortlist is out.  The winner of this £25,000 Prize will be announced on June 12th at Abbotsford, the country house which was Scott's home in the Scottish Borders.

The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry (Canongate/Doubleday US) - 1890s Montana

The Mare, Angharad Hampshire (Northodox Press) - 1950s New York

The Book of Days, Francesca Kay (Swift Press) - Tudor England 

Glorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree/St. Martin's) - ancient Greece

The Land in Winter, Andrew Miller (Sceptre) - 1962/63 England

The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden (Viking UK/Avid Reader) - postwar Holland

No Americans on the list this time, but half of the shortlist were published in the US, and two of the novels, The Heart in Winter and The Mare, are set here. You can read the judges' comments, with short plot synopses, at the link above.

On Jane Friedman's blog, author Laura Stanfill has a guest post explaining how she raised the stakes in her historical novel by following an editor's advice and moving a secondary character into the protagonist's chair.  Read more at "Trust Your Instincts: Why Writing for Yourself Leads to Better Books."

In Welcome to Censorship, author Vanessa Riley speaks about how she was using the design tool Canva to develop slides for promoting her upcoming historical novel when the software flagged the word "enslaved," which describes her protagonist, as unsupported usage because it appeared to be "a political topic." Very disturbing.

From Sarah McCraw Crow's Substack, An Unfinished Story, the latest in her Midlife Author series is an interview with historical novelist Jane Healey about becoming debut author in her 40s, what it takes to pursue a writing career long-term, and the challenges she's faced.

Alina Adams, whose historical novel Go On Pretending is out on May 1st, writes about the ways she had success obtaining preorders, and where these attempts didn't work.

In the industry, people are getting mixed messages about the category "women's fiction."  Editors aren't using the term, preferring "relationship fiction" or "book club fiction" instead.  Agents are moving away from it too.  But many writers and writers' associations embrace its usage, and the BISAC category of Fiction/Women still remains. You'll find the BISAC codes for books used by retailers like Amazon, digital catalogs like Edelweiss, and more. Read much more at Heather Garbo's Substack, Write Your Next Chapter.  Her post, which examines relevant book deal announcements from Publishers Marketplace, also looks at the overlap between historical and women's fiction, and how books that fall into both categories may be labeled as one but not the other, making it hard to locate all new releases comprehensively. I'm always interested in avenues for discoverability for historical fiction, so I appreciated this post.

Isabel Allende's My Name Is Emilia del Valle adds a new angle to her ongoing family saga

Allende has created many addictive sagas about the extended del Valle family and their intersections with history and one another. The eponymous Emilia, Allende’s addition to this notable clan, is one adventurous, gutsy woman.

The illegitimate daughter of a Chilean aristocrat and the Irish novice nun he seduced, Emilia grows up in San Francisco with her loving stepfather’s support, intrepidly working around gender restrictions. After penning dime novels pseudonymously, she becomes a human-interest columnist for the Daily Examiner and wangles an assignment as international correspondent for the impending Chilean Civil War of 1891, under her own byline.

Emilia’s first meeting with her long-lost father in Santiago is quite moving, and her time with the canteen girls who accompany President Balmaceda’s army echoes with their unsung courage. Allende expertly navigates through the violent chaos of battle and how it affects Emilia, whose romantic relationships also showcase her character growth.

Fans of Allende’s now-classic Daughter of Fortune (1999) and Portrait in Sepia (2000) will particularly welcome this offering, which is replete with Allende’s customary poetic storytelling.

My Name Is Emilia del Valle will be published by Ballantine in May; the translator is Frances Riddle.  I contributed this review for Booklist's March issue.

I recommended this especially for readers of Allende's earlier novels because it's a new entry in the Del Valle saga, but mostly since significant characters from Daughter of Fortune and its sequel appear here too, which was a nice surprise.  No spoilers here, but I'll be curious to see what other readers think about how this novel ends.