Today I'd like to welcome Christine Blevins back to Reading the Past.  Back in 2008, I interviewed her about her debut, Midwife of the B...

The Historical Novel Society's 2012 conference in London is shaping up nicely.  The conference website is taking early bookings for the...

M.J. Rose’s time-slip thrillers always pull me into fascinating corners of the world, and of history, where I never knew I wanted to travel....

Augusta Branson, the heroine of Taylor Polites' debut novel The Rebel Wife , isn't a stereotypically feisty Southern belle – far fr...

Can a novel with a mythical setting still be classed as historical fiction? When speaking of The Settlers of Catan , the answer – perhaps s...

As many of you will know by now, today is the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, the celebrated English novelist.  This event has been noted...

Today Margaret Wurtele is stopping by with a guest post about using diaries and memoirs as background material.  Her debut novel, The Golden...

Here we are again with another collage of historical novel covers and descriptions.  As usual, I'm running slightly behind, which means ...

Multi-period novels with parallel stories linked by family connections are among my favorite types of books.  While the parts set in an earl...

I confess I was paying so much attention to the Newberys and other ALA book awards that the announcement of the Scott O'Dell Award for H...

The American Library Association's 2012 Midwinter conference just wrapped up in Dallas, and a number of literary awards were announced t...

How far does family loyalty extend? If the relative to whom you owed your social position asked you a favor that required you to give up ...

Did you ever notice that many historical novels are really, really long? Above at left, we have over 4100 pages' worth of the latest ...

Okay, it's not quite that dramatic, but earlier this week, blogger and historical fiction fan Jane Steen asked me some good questions ab...

Today I'm welcoming Julie K. Rose to the blog to discuss the backdrop to her new historical novel, Oleanna , which takes place during th...