Stranger than Fiction: a guest post by Susan Spann, author of the Shinobi Mysteries

Happy Monday!  Susan Spann, author of the Shinobi mysteries, is here today with a post about her recent visit to Japan and the unexpected surprises that happen during the research process.

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Stranger than Fiction

Susan Spann

I set my Shinobi Mysteries in 16th century Japan because I love to travel in the pages of the books I read, and that goes doubly for the ones I write. Each book transports me to another place and time, and lets me “see” a host of strange and exotic things.

Research is an important part of writing historical novels. (Any novels, really. Both the devil and the bad reviews are mostly in the details…) Since my mysteries take place in a time and place that no longer exist, most of my research happens on the pages of a book. Sometimes, however, it’s possible to visit the places I write about, and on the truly special occasions, the truth proves even stranger than my fiction.

Last month I traveled to Japan for a research trip. I spent the second day at Fushimi Inari Taisha, the most important of the Shinto shrines dedicated to Inari Okami, god of foxes, rice, tea, fertility, swordsmiths, merchants, and good fortune. (Inari gets around.)

Fushimi Inari lies on Mount Inari, just south of Kyoto. Thousands of red, sacred torii gates line the path that leads to the top of the mountain. The torii symbolize passing from a worldly space to a sacred one, and Fushimi Inari is famous for the number and size of its gates. In some places, they even form a tunnel.

Many visitors don’t make the three-hour climb to the top of the mountain, but I’m featuring the shrine in an upcoming novel, so up I went. About halfway to the top, I noticed a sign and an earthen path leading off into the trees. Of course, I followed…

…and ended up at an ancient sub-shrine dedicated not to Inari, but to the guardian dragons of Japan:

I’ve always loved dragons, and knew they featured in Japanese mythology. In fact, that upcoming book I mentioned involves not only Fushimi Inari, but also dragon mythology.

And when I wrote it…I had no idea a dragon sub-shrine existed on Mount Inari.

Yet there it was. The dragons were waiting exactly where I needed them for the novel I’m preparing to write.

One of the most amazing parts of writing involves the “miraculous” facts that show up where you need them and often, when you least expect them. For example, a character needs a certain type of weapon or tool, and—to my surprise—the research supports the plot point. As an author, I normally establish a basic plot and then do most of the research before I write.

The order of operations helps me ensure I don’t put something…like a dragon shrine…into a book where it doesn’t belong. That’s particularly important in the historical context, and when the author is writing stories set in a “real” time and place. I take the history seriously, and I’ve changed subplots and story points if the history won’t support them. For example, my first Shinobi Mystery, Claws of the Cat, involved the murder of a retired samurai general in a teahouse. The female entertainers who worked in those teahouses are now called “geisha,” but that word did not exist in the 16th century, when my books are set. Instead, I used the historically accurate word, “entertainer,” which is what the women now called “geishas” were called in 1564. The change cost me a little in terms of rapid recognition for my characters, but accuracy is worth the extra effort.

One of my goals for this trip to Japan was learning whether the dragon mythology mingled with the Shinto shrines in a way that would work for my upcoming subplot. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect to find a dragon shrine on the very mountain where that book takes place.

It’s not the first time research has uncovered a startling surprise that helped my work—but I have to admit, Inari did me a favor this time around.

Have you ever had a pleasant surprise arise in the course of your work? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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Susan Spann acquired her love of books and reading during her preschool days in Santa Monica, California. As a child she read everything from National Geographic to Agatha Christie. In high school, she once turned a short-story assignment into a full-length fantasy novel (which, fortunately, will never see the light of day).

A yearning to experience different cultures sent Susan to Tufts University in Boston, where she immersed herself in the history and culture of China and Japan. After earning an undergraduate degree in Asian Studies, Susan diverted to law school. She returned to California to practice law, where her continuing love of books has led her to specialize in intellectual property, business and publishing contracts.

Susan’s interest in Japanese history, martial arts, and mystery inspired her to write the Shinobi Mystery series featuring Hiro Hattori, a sixteenth-century ninja who brings murderers to justice with the help of Father Mateo, a Portuguese Jesuit priest. When not writing or representing clients, Susan enjoys traditional archery, martial arts, horseback riding, online gaming, and raising seahorses and rare corals in her highly distracting marine aquarium. Susan lives in Sacramento with her husband, son, three cats, one bird, and a multitude of assorted aquatic creatures.

For more information please visit Susan Spann’s website and blog. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.  (All images in this post are owned by Susan Spann.)

About Flask of the Drunken Master:

August 1565: When a rival artisan turns up dead outside Ginjiro’s brewery, and all the evidence implicates the brewer, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo must find the killer before the magistrate executes Ginjiro and seizes the brewery, leaving his wife and daughter destitute. A missing merchant, a vicious debt collector, and a female moneylender join Ginjiro and the victim’s spendthrift son on the suspect list. But with Kyoto on alert in the wake of the shogun’s recent death, a rival shinobi on the prowl, and samurai threatening Hiro and Father Mateo at every turn, Ginjiro’s life is not the only one in danger.

Will Hiro and Father Mateo unravel the clues in time to save Ginjiro’s life, or will the shadows gathering over Kyoto consume the detectives as well as the brewer?

Flask of the Drunken Master (St. Martin's Press, July 2015, 304pp, hardcover and ebook) is the latest entry in Susan Spann’s thrilling 16th century Japanese mystery series, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Jesuit Father Mateo. Check out other stops along her blog tour.

Tudor fiction without the famous

Let's face it: books about Henry VIII, his six queens, and other relatives (like Lady Jane Grey and Mary Queen of Scots) draw a lot of attention.  On the Goodreads list for best books about Tudor England, you have to scroll down well past #100 before you'll find much of anything else.

After posting a review of Jane Borodale's The Knot on Tuesday, I got to thinking about other historical novels I've read that are set in Tudor England (1485-1603) but which feature lesser-known personalities or fictional characters, and which take place away from the royal court.

While novels featuring royalty are a longtime interest, I also enjoy reading about daily life at the time and the impact of major historical events on average citizens.  Below are examples of "Tudor fiction without the famous" that I've reviewed, as well as others I've come across.

Valerie Anand's The House of Allerbrook, a standalone sequel to The House of Lanyon, is a family saga set mostly on Exmoor in Somerset in the 16th century.

Jenny Barden's two historical novels, Mistress of the Sea and The Lost Duchess, set partly in England and partly in the New World, are romantic adventure novels that evoke maritime exploration during the Elizabethan Golden Age.

The Miracle at St. Bruno's, first in the Daughters of England series by Philippa Carr, takes place in 1530s London. Philippa Carr was a pseudonym used by Eleanor Hibbert, who also wrote as Victoria Holt and Jean Plaidy.

The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory is a dark novel of jealousy and the supernatural set in County Durham in the 1530s.

Time's Echo, a time-slip novel by Pamela Hartshorne, contains marvelous details of Elizabethan-era York.  I understand her subsequent novels The Memory of Midnight and The Edge of Dark fall into the same category.

Mary M. Luke's out of print novel The Nonsuch Lure is a time-slip focusing on the Coddington family, who were forced to relocate after Henry VIII decided to build Nonsuch Palace on their lands in Surrey.

Jeri Westerson's Roses in the Tempest imagines a chaste romance between a woman who becomes a nun and her childhood friend, a Tudor-era courtier, at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. There are some court scenes, but it mostly takes place in a village in Staffordshire.

And some other titles worth a mention:

Nancy Bilyeau's Joanna Stafford series (The Crown, The Chalice, The Tapestry) features a Dominican nun's determination to survive the political and religious changes transforming her world.  The last volume finds Joanna in the midst of the Tudor court.

Sarah Kennedy, author of The Altarpiece and City of Ladies (and the upcoming The King's Sisters), has guest-posted here about nuns and mothers as well as mystery plays in Henry VIII's England.

Gallows Wedding by Rhona Martin, the first winner of the Historical Novel Prize in Memory of Georgette Heyer, is a novel of witchcraft and doomed love set in Henry VIII's time.

Green Darkness by Anya Seton, which I'd read ages ago, is a classic novel of reincarnation set in the England of Edward VI (son of Henry VIII) and 20th-century England.

What else can you recommend along these same lines?  That is, Tudor times, non-famous characters.

Note: I've based the title of this post off the HNS conference session entitled "Historical Fiction Without the Famous" (see Mary Tod's blog A Writer of History for more), although from what I understand, that session focused on novels with fictional characters.

A man of science in Elizabethan England: Jane Borodale's The Knot

It feels like I haven't been reviewing as many books here this summer as usual.  This isn't because I haven't been reading and writing, though; quite the opposite!  In the past couple of months I've turned in five reviews for Booklist and seven for the Historical Novels Review, and I'll republish most of them once they've appeared in the magazines.

After those deadlines had passed, I had a chance to pick up a novel that's been sitting on my shelves way too long.  I first wrote about Jane Borodale's The Knot in a preview post back in January 2012.  For those who love the Tudor era but seek out characters beyond the usual range of court personalities, this contemplative novel will be a refreshing change.

It's based on the known facts about Henry Lyte, a prosperous landowner living at Lytes Cary in Somerset in the 1560s and 1570s.  A painstaking observer of the natural world, Lyte takes it upon himself to translate a Dutch herbal into English.  His purpose is noble: he wants to make the material available more widely, to those who can't afford physicians' fees, and so "that they can fetch this knowledge out of strange tongues," as the epigraph states.

It's also the story of the elaborate herb garden he designs and creates – regretfully, there's no trace left of it today – and of his second wife Frances and their growing family, his servants, and his professional acquaintances, who interact with him, support him, and serve as unwelcome distractions from his book, which has become an obsession.

Borodale brings readers deep into Henry's mind as he wanders around his estate, ponders the English equivalents for plants described in the Dutch herbal, tries to oversee the smooth running of his estate, and deals with his fault-finding stepmother, whom he detests.  

His marriage to Frances is contented enough, so he believes, although her behavior frequently bemuses him. Frances comes from London, and Henry fails to understand her lack of interest in the minutiae of gardening or her fear that the region will flood.  "It's like walking on bodies," Frances says about the moist, uneven ground of the Somerset Levels.  Plus, there are occasional murmurings and questions around the countryside about the death of Henry's first wife, Anys, or so he thinks – he hasn't heard them firsthand.  I detected a sense of guilt at play here, and wondered about what really happened.

Lyte is the head of his household, and everyone knows it and respects it, in keeping with the times.  Still, I enjoyed seeing the moments of spirited defiance against his wishes, like when his longtime gardener, Tobias Mote, dares to express his own opinions (because he is always right), or when Frances finds an expensive new hobby.  Although everything is seen through Henry's eyes, the story is written so that readers can see others' viewpoints even if Henry's too oblivious to notice them.  This would be a very different book if told from Frances' perspective!

The Knot can be read as a well-wrought biographical novel, a vibrant portrait of an upper-class Elizabethan household and the science of its age, and as a morality tale of sorts.  While few readers will likely be as entranced by the plethora of botanical detail as Henry is, it's all presented beautifully.

The Knot was published in the UK by HarperPress in 2012; this was a personal purchase. 

An intense human story of a natural disaster: Vanessa Lafaye's Summertime (Under a Dark Summer Sky)

Vanessa Lafaye’s Summertime – or, in the US, Under a Dark Summer Sky – is an engaging summer read with a social bite. The isolated setting of Heron Key in Florida in 1935 is a hotbed of racial tensions, some overt and others quietly simmering and waiting to boil over.

Two generations after the end of slavery, the community’s annual Independence Day barbecue remains a segregated event, although "no one could partition the sky when those fireworks went up.”

Stress levels are already high, with over 200 unruly WWI veterans taking up residence in shacks while they repair a bridge as part of a public works project. When Hilda Kincaid, an unhappy white woman, is found badly beaten in the early hours of July 5th, Henry Roberts, a black veteran who’s finally returned home, is eyed as a suspect. The lack of motive hardly seems to matter.

The human drama takes center stage from the get-go, and following the events in the characters’ lives compels further reading. There are a lot of them to track, and while a few minor characters feel a bit fuzzy, most spring from the page with their individual personalities.

Eighteen summertimes is a long time to carry a torch for someone, but Missy Douglas, the Kincaids’ maid and nanny, has waited that long for her old friend Henry to come back from the war. She finds him profoundly changed, worn down by life, and doesn’t know if she and their town can compete with his memories of Europe – where he had a lover who didn't care about his skin color. All isn’t well in the Kincaids’ marriage, and hasn’t been from the start.  The veterans, black and white, already irked about their promised wartime bonuses being postponed, don’t mix well with the locals.

When one of the biggest tropical cyclones on record strikes the Keys soon after, the rush to survive brings out many extremes in human nature.

The writing is so accomplished that it’s hard to believe this is Lafaye’s debut. For those who like their historical fiction entrenched in a specific time and place, it will be an intense and unsettling read.

Summertime was published in the UK by Orion in paperback in May (£7.99, 368pp).  Under a Dark Summer Sky, its US title, was published in June by Sourcebooks Landmark ($14.99, 390pp).  Thanks to Orion for sending a review copy my way.

A dozen new and upcoming historical novels featuring royalty

Novels about the personal lives of royalty, and those close to the throne, were among my first loves in historical fiction.  These books waxed and waned in popularity over the past few decades, but although they've never fallen out of favor, authors are continually in search of new approaches and different historical figures to write about. 

Presented here are twelve new and recent titles centering on royalty, ones I haven't featured here before (see also my posts for Women's History Month).  Their subjects span a wide range of times and places, but it's not surprising that English settings predominate.


An alternate history novel about the daughter of Queen Elizabeth I, first in a new series by Andersen (The Boleyn Trilogy).  Ballantine, May 2015.



The Sun King gets a lot of attention in historical fiction, but this debut centers on the court of his great-grandson, the "well-beloved" Louis XV, and the five Nesle sisters – four of whom became his mistresses.  Atria, September 2015.



Dunn is known for exploring Tudor women's lives from new angles.  Here her subjects are Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day Protestant queen, and Elizabeth Tilney, a young Catholic woman who is drawn into her circle toward the end of Jane's life.  Little Brown UK, May 2015. 



A new retelling of Empress Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror and daughter of King Henry I, who was forced to fight for her crown.  Robert Hale, June 2015.



Gregory continues her Tudor Court series with her depiction of another female protagonist trapped in difficult circumstances: the independent-minded Kateryn Parr, last wife of Henry VIII.  Simon & Schuster, August 2015.


The life story of Zenobia, an ambitious Syrian woman in the 3rd century AD who dreams of becoming Queen of Palmyra and of bringing Rome to its knees.  Lake Union, December 2015.



British history writer Lisa Hilton imagines the story of Isabelle of Angouleme, future Queen of England and former betrothed of Hugh of Lusignan, whose family hopes to use her to re-establish the Old Religion in early 13th-century Europe.  Corvus, October 2015.



This is the 2nd action-packed volume of Iggulden's evocation of the Wars of the Roses, in which Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, fiercely defends her son's birthright.  Michael Joseph UK (published as Wars of the Roses: Trinity), 2014; also Putnam, June 2015.



The timeless biblical tale of a young Jewish girl who rises to become Queen of Persia and is given the power to save her people is reinterpreted here by Kanner (The Sinners and the Sea).  Howard, November 2015. Look out also for novels by Angela Hunt (Esther: Royal Beauty) and India Edghill (Game of Queens, about Esther and her predecessor, Vashti). 



Limburg's debut novel delves into the life of Queen Anne, destined to be overshadowed by other members of her Stuart family, but here granted her proper place as a complex figure who endured considerable tragedy.  Atlantic, August 2015.



Through her novels, Purcell presents a convincing case that the Georgian monarchy was every bit as fascinating as those before and after.  Her latest recounts the story of Henrietta Howard, mistress of King George II.  Myrmidon, August 2015.



Randel's debut novel is about the intelligent concubine who rose to become China's first and only female ruler, the Empress Wu, in the 7th century; first in a two-book series.  Sourcebooks Landmark, March 2016.

The presentation: A quick journey through historical fiction covers and trends

For attendees at last weekend's Historical Novel Society conference who missed seeing the session on The Art of Book Cover Design for Historical Fiction, or for anyone else who's interested, here's a link to my part of the PowerPoint, which also includes my script (in the form of presentation notes).

Once you reach the linked page, click on Download to open the file.  It's 2 mb.

I don't usually work with a script, but since I was going first out of five and had a short time allotted to me, I practiced a few times to make sure it all fit.  Normally I'm used to giving hour-long presentations to students, so this helped.  Anyhow, enjoy!

The other four presenters were Jenny Quinlan of Historical Editorial (who talked about more trends and gave advice based on her cover design experience); Kris Waldherr (a novelist and designer who created beautiful covers for her own books and Sandra Gulland's ebooks, among others); Anna Michels of Sourcebooks (who provided an overview of the design process for Susan Higginbotham's upcoming novel Hanging Mary, including the covers that didn't make it); and Emily Victorson, publisher at Allium Press of Chicago (who showed how she uses period photographs and historical fonts to come up with their covers).

UPDATE, July 9th:  Jenny Quinlan's part of the presentation is now online at her blog.  It's a must-see if you're interested in cover design trends; she also provides insight into historical anachronisms.

A sidenote: while I was heading up the elevator at the conference hotel, another attendee saw my badge and speaker ribbon and asked what I was presenting about. I told her, and she asked me, "So, are you for or against headless women?"  This is the type of conference it was.  Everyone spoke the same language.

Cat Winters' The Uninvited, an atmospheric ghost story set at a terrifying time

Ivy Rowan sees ghosts. The women in her family all have this gift, or curse. Whenever they glimpse a “harbinger spirit,” they know someone close to them will die soon.

The heavy sense of dread that hangs over Cat Winters’ work of gothic suspense, her first novel for adults, derives as much from the historical milieu as from this unnatural ability.

Set in fictional Buchanan, Illinois, population 12,500 (although the infrastructure and sprawling layout appear to resemble a larger city like Peoria rather than the small-town setting where I live), The Uninvited hits to the heart of why the year 1918 was such a terrifying time. The threats are all too human.

Ivy has barely recovered from a nasty bout of flu when she learns her father and younger brother have gone out and killed a German man who co-owned a local furniture store – in a horribly misguided act of revenge, since Ivy’s older brother Billy had recently died while fighting overseas. Feeling intense guilt over the deadly results of their “superpatriotic” sentiments, Ivy leaves her family’s white farm house and trudges past the city limits, with its sign warning visitors about the dreaded influenza.

When she seeks out the victim’s surviving brother, Daniel Schendler, in an effort to somehow make amends, she stumbles into an unexpected mutual attraction. Ivy is also drawn toward the syncopated rhythms emanating from the jazz club that’s sprung up at the Masonic Lodge downtown. Interestingly, the scene there is one of the few places in the city that recognizes people as equals, regardless of color or ethnicity.

The novel is drenched in atmosphere, both the terrible paranoia that caused Americans to turn on so-called enemy aliens during wartime – a shameful practice that continues to occur – and the heady release found in music. For fans of The Thirteenth Tale and other novels of that ilk, The Uninvited has more than one daring twist. (I felt proud at predicting one of them, but another blindsided me.) And either paradoxically or fittingly, in this story saturated by death, it also evokes the intoxicating joy that comes with being young, vibrant, and free.  I recommend it as a shivery read this summer.

The Uninvited will be published by William Morrow in trade paperback in August (368pp, $14.99). Thanks to the publisher for approving my access via Edelweiss.

Hot topics and themes in historical fiction - with recommended titles

This will be a shortish post, as I'll be heading out soon to the Historical Novel Society's 6th North American conference, which is in Denver this coming weekend.  I'll be speaking on a panel, "The Art of Book Cover Design for Historical Fiction," on Saturday afternoon, and have been practicing the presentation in my office today to make sure that it's timed appropriately.  There are five of us speaking, so we have about seven minutes apiece.  I think I'm good to go.

It's actually been a busy summer presentation-wise, since last Tuesday evening I gave an introductory workshop on historical fiction for my university's Academy of Lifelong Learning, which provides continuing education for adults in the local community.  There were 24 people signed up – a larger crowd than expected.  It was great to see so much interest in the topic.  The attendees had some good questions at the end, about trends, anachronisms, subgenres, and so forth.

One of the handouts I gave the audience was a guide to current trends in historical fiction, with a list of titles and descriptions.  Since I promised to make it publicly available, it's linked above as a pdf.  There are plenty of titles I didn't include, since I wanted to keep it to a reasonable length... but if you have favorite titles on trendy topics you'd like to recommend, please leave them in the comments.

For those readers and authors who'll be at the conference, I look forward to seeing you there!

New & upcoming historical novels by authors previously reviewed here

I always look forward to new novels by authors whose earlier books I've read and enjoyed.  For my newest gallery of upcoming titles, here are 10 historical novels set to appear over the next year, with details.



Secrets from a century ago are uncovered when a woman travels to Ireland, to go through the things her late uncle left behind in his lakeside cottage, and finds a manuscript written by a woman named Eliza Drury.  The author's previous novel, Liberty Silk, was a multi-generational novel written with both style and warmth.  Transworld Ireland, July.



After hearing Geraldine Brooks speak with the Washington Post's "totally hip book reviewer" Ron Charles at BEA, I've been eager to read her upcoming novel, focusing on the life of King David.  An ARC appeared in my mail yesterday, and I'll be reading it shortly.  I had reviewed her previous novel Caleb's Crossing for the Globe & Mail and reposted it here shortly thereafter.  Viking, October.



The two wealthy Melville sisters see their lives upended during WWI and try to establish new roots in the new, resulting world.  Clark moves ahead into the trendy early 20th-century timeframe following a visit to colonial Louisiana with Savage Lands and Victorian London with Beautiful Lies.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October.



Marina Fiorato's earlier novels are set in historic Italy, and at first Kit, which opens in 18th-century Dublin, seems not to follow that pattern - but wait and see where Kit Kavanagh's adventures lead her.  Daughter of Siena, which I reviewed a few years ago, centers on the Palio horse race in the 18th century.  Hodder & Stoughton, July.



This is my most anticipated novel of the fall season.  As one would expect from Kate Morton, it's a generational mystery filled with family secrets and suspense, this time surrounding a child's disappearance in Depression-era Cornwall and the repercussions decades later.  For my earlier reviews of Morton's novels, see The Secret Keeper and The Distant Hours. Atria, October.



The market town of Chesterfield in Derbyshire may not be as high-profile as other locales Nickson's written about, like Seattle or Leeds, but I appreciate the chance to spend time in lesser-known places - especially when I've been there in real-life.  Great title for this upcoming sequel to the medieval mystery The Crooked Spire, which I read on my way home from the UK last September.  The Mystery Press, March 2016.



With her new release, Raybourn begins a new Victorian-era mystery series, this time featuring world traveler Veronica Speedwell, another of the adventurous historical heroines she's known for.  I've previously reviewed Night of a Thousand Stars, set in the Middle East in the '20s, and interviewed her about her first Victorian mystery, Silent in the Grave, way back in 2007.  NAL, September.



In the vein of her breakout novel The House at Tyneford, Solomons' latest focuses on family, music, and moving beyond grief and takes place on an English country estate in the '40s and half a century later.  Plume, December.

The grandfather of Layla Roy from Patel's debut, Teatime for the Firefly, is the protagonist of Flame Tree Road, set in 1870s India.  After seeing how his mother is shamefully treated after his father's death, Biren Roy decides to fight for a brighter future for women.  I'll be reviewing this later on in the summer.  MIRA, June.



Three star authors team up for a mystery surrounding a Gilded Age mansion, a woman from an old portrait, and an expensive heirloom.  Williams' The Secret Life of Violet Grant was reviewed here earlier, as was Willig's The Ashford Affair - and a review of Karen White's new book will be forthcoming.  NAL, January 2016.

A grand and dangerous adventure: Gill Paul's No Place for a Lady

The front lines of battle may seem to be no place for a lady, but it’s where two estranged sisters find new levels of maturity, see their strength tested to its limits, and develop new understandings of themselves and those they love.

Gill Paul's latest novel takes place during the Crimean War, a conflict in which Britain, France, Sardinia, and Ottoman Turkey united to fight Russia over the latter’s imperial expansions in the mid-19th century. It’s a complex set of circumstances, which may be why it doesn’t feature much in fiction, but she does a good job explaining the historical background.

In London in 1854, Dorothea Gray is distraught when her younger sister Lucy, an outgoing 17-year-old with little experience of the world, marries Charlie Harvington after a short courtship. Although Charlie is a captain with the 8th Hussars – part of the Light Brigade – Dorothea does some checking around and learns his parents have disowned him, calling him a “scoundrel of low morals."  Lucy, however, remains smitten with him.

Dorothea, at 31, is a talented volunteer nurse; bright and sensible, she’s clearly better cut out for a trek to the Crimean Peninsula than the sister she helped raise, their mother having died at Lucy's birth. However, it’s Lucy who heads there, with her new husband, just as war with the Russians is looming.

The narrative switches between the viewpoints of Dorothea, who hopes to join Florence Nightingale’s cadre of nurses in the Turkish lands and watch over Lucy there; and Lucy, who quickly learns that the conditions she’s forced to endure as an officer’s wife are hardly what she expects. Her naiveté is shown via the feather pillows and heirloom silk bedspread she brings along – they’re hopelessly impractical in the tents where she and Charlie set up camp.

Food supplies and warm uniforms are hard to come by during the harsh winter, which lowers morale and weakens the soldiers further. Lucy finds it hard to forgive Dorothea for trying to prevent her wedding but, with disease running rampant, needs her advice more than ever. Maybe it’s my age showing, but while I felt I was intended to see Dorothea as overbearing, as Lucy did, I admired her for being concerned about her sister's future.

This is a grand epic in the best sense: it has enormous sweep and scope but doesn’t neglect the smaller details of life during wartime or of travel through new, unfamiliar lands, from the mosques and minarets of Constantinople at sunset, the “black silhouettes against an orange sky,” to the Barracks Hospital in Scutari, with its terrible stench and primitive conditions.

The famous Miss Nightingale is on the scene, of course, extremely competent as she fearlessly takes charge, but her formidable presence and rigid rules mean she’s more beloved by her patients than her staff.

One minor distracting element involves an episode when Lucy disappears from view for a time.  When her perspective is delayed, to increase the suspense about where she is and whether the sisters will ever reunite, the novel's rhythm feels a bit disrupted. 

Regretfully, there aren’t many novels like this around anymore, and I might be tempted to call it old-fashioned for that reason, but the writing is brisk and fresh, and its enlightened multicultural perspective gives it contemporary resonance. There’s a good dose of romance, plenty of grit and realism, and unpredictable twists and turns – this isn’t the type of novel whose path is telegraphed from the beginning.  Many new characters pass through the sisters’ lives along their journeys, and both are altered by their experiences.

All in all, it’s an exciting story recommended to readers in search of adventure, and who are prepared to travel wherever the novel may lead.

No Place for a Lady will be published on July 2nd in paperback by Avon UK (400pp, £7.99) and is currently available as an ebook (£0.99 or $1.99).  Thanks to the author's publicist for sending me a pdf file as part of the blog tour.

Growing up royal: Chantal Thomas' The Exchange of Princesses

Best known for Farewell, My Queen (2003), an intimate glimpse of Marie Antoinette’s last days, Thomas has crafted a pointed and witty novel that sheds light on two eighteenth-century princesses trapped by familial obligations and the capricious whims of the court.

On January 9, 1722, two cortèges unload and swap their passengers at Pheasant Island, a neutral point in the Pyrenees region. To ally their quarrelsome countries, 12-year-old Louise Élisabeth of Orléans, one of the many neglected daughters of France’s regent, will marry the Spanish heir, Luis, while Luis’ half-sister, Mariana Victoria, an adorable three-year-old who clings to her dolls, is sent to France to wed the adolescent Louis XV. “Could a more perfect symmetry be imagined?” Thomas ironically observes.

Writing in a formal style, she highlights the absurdity of royal ceremonies and the cruel circumstances that abandon these girls to their fates and deny them anything resembling a real childhood. Excerpts from authentic, little-known letters and documents add to the reading experience. 

Chantal Thomas' The Exchange of Princesses, ably translated into English by John Cullen, will be published by Other Press in July ($16.95, trade pb, 336pp). This review first appeared in Booklist's June issue.

An additional note: I've read many novels about royalty (they're a special interest), so it's rare for me to pick up a work of royal fiction without knowing how it will end, but this particular episode was entirely new. If you haven't heard of it either, avoid Wikipedia before beginning!

An early look at Landfalls by Naomi J. Williams, nautical adventure with a difference

Tracing the movements of France’s ill-fated Lapérouse maritime expedition in the late eighteenth century, Williams’ exceptional debut isn’t your traditional seafaring yarn and is all the stronger and more penetrating for it.

The plot moves confidently between views of the changing landscape—from a crisply evoked Georgian London, where a naval engineer travels to procure supplies, and then on to Tenerife, Chile, Alaska, California, Russia, and the South Seas islands—and its characters’ choices and inner lives.

The emphasis is not on fast-paced drama so much as on interactions among the two ship’s captains (Lapérouse and Langle), their crews, the numerous scientists on board, and the residents and natives at many stopping points.

Williams’ status as an acclaimed short story writer is evident in her craftsmanship of each perfectly encapsulated chapter, each recounted from a different viewpoint or viewpoints. The section set at Monterey in 1786, for instance, demonstrates masterful use of perspective, as one revelation after another about the Spanish mission there comes to light.

Full of period sensibilities, particularly the Enlightenment-era urge to go forth and explore new domains, the novel is alternately charming, invigorating, and heartbreaking, and always thoughtful and humane. Even readers who don’t seek out nautical adventures will find themselves drawn in, especially if they love high-quality literary fiction.

Landfalls will be published in early August by Farrar Straus & Giroux ($26, hardcover, 336pp) and, in the UK, by Little Brown in October.  This starred review first appeared in the April 15th issue of Booklist.

Some additional notes: This book was such a wonderful surprise!  I'm not the natural audience for a lot of historical adventure fiction, as I often find myself wading through jargon that other readers of the subgenre seem to crave, and I've read plenty of round-the-world-exploration novels and wondered if this one would stand out.  It absolutely did, and I'm grateful I got the chance to read it.

A few notes on the historical novels at BEA 2015

I returned home from NYC on Saturday night and am still getting caught up.  It was a very busy few days at BEA, a big contrast from my quiet university town during the summer.

Although I was thrown off balance by having to miss opening day (thanks to an allergic reaction to something I'd had the night before), I still managed to collect a decent number of historical ARCs.  However, I took it pretty easy at the show, doing more sitting than networking, since I wasn't quite up to par by Thursday.  Which means I didn't wait on many of the signing lines I intended to. 

Instead, I spent a lot of time attending panels at the Uptown and Downtown stages and had a few meetings with publishers and publicists.  Among the panels, I especially enjoyed "inside the mystery writer's studio" featuring five writers (all men!), including Brad Meltzer, whose new thriller The President's Shadow features an archivist and has a historical aspect to it.  I've added it to my wishlist.

The historical novels I took back with me were a very diverse bunch, time- and setting-wise.  Some are for me, and others will be sent out for review for the Historical Novels Review (I attended BEA as a member of the press, representing HNR).



Sourcebooks is putting a lot of effort into promoting Susan Higginbotham's Hanging Mary, which isn't out until next spring; it's the first US-set novel from an author better known for writing about medieval and Renaissance English history.

Captain in Calico, at the very top, is George MacDonald Fraser's first and previously unpublished novel, a pirate adventure about Captain Jack Rackham in the 18th-century Caribbean.

I started reading Emily Holleman's Cleopatra's Shadows on the plane home and regretfully had to set it aside temporarily since I have two other reviews due next week. It has two viewpoint characters: Arsinoe and Berenice, both siblings to Cleopatra whose stories are comparatively little-known.



I also like what they did with the cover art: like the book itself, it takes a familiar subject and looks at it from a new perspective.  The original painting has graced many covers, including the one below, but with Cleopatra always at the center.  The Holleman cover shifts the view slightly.



And below, the second pile of historical fiction.  Two are speculative literary time-slips dealing with past lives, Susan Barker's The Incarnations and Gwendolyn Womack's The Memory Painter.  Check out the book trailer for the latter; it's fantastic and does exactly what a trailer should do.  It's beautifully filmed, moves quickly, and piqued my interest in the book.



One title that's missing: Geraldine Brooks' The Secret Chord, as I didn't have the stamina to wait in an hour-long signing line.  I did, however, attend the discussion she had with Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles at one of the BEA stages, and it was great, with insight into how she decided on and researched her upcoming novel of King David.

Look for reviews of many of the above titles later in 2015 or early in 2016.

Which fall books are you looking forward to the most?

Family, drama, revolution: Freda Lightfoot's The Amber Keeper

Best known for her sagas of historical British life, Lightfoot’s newest release fits with the popular dual-narratives trend, in which family secrets from an earlier generation spill forth in a later era with dramatic results. Here the plot centers on the surprising suicide of Abbie Myers’ mother, Kate, and how it relates to the time Abbie’s adored grandmother, Millie, spent in Russia in the early 20th century.

In 1963, Abbie returns home to the Lake District from Paris after splitting with her married lover. Most of Abbie’s family, a truly sour bunch, blames her for Kate’s death, claiming that Abbie and her illegitimate daughter made Kate feel ashamed and despondent. Abbie doesn’t buy it, though, and turns to Millie for answers. As Abbie attempts to revitalize the family’s jewelry business, one revelation follows another as Millie speaks about her years as governess to an aristocratic Russian family.

The easy prose style draws one in immediately, and the setting of the early segments offers much promise: glittering St. Petersburg during the lead-up to the Bolshevik Revolution. However, the story is let down by over-the-top characters whose rapid emotional about-faces are hard to tolerate. Abbie puts up with terrible treatment from her father, brother, and ex and veers between telling them off and forgiving them. Countess Olga, Millie’s employer, is the epitome of cruelty and selfishness, although guessing what she’ll do next provides some entertainment.

The mystery surrounding Millie’s adoption of the young Kate from a London orphanage, and how a piece of rare amber came to be found in Kate’s belongings, pulls the two story strands together well, but more subtlety in the telling would have gone a long way.

The Amber Keeper was published by Amazon's Lake Union imprint in late 2014 in trade paperback ($14.95, 384pp) and ebook (currently $1.99).  This review first appeared in May's Historical Novels Review.

The Blue Mile by Kim Kelly: Love and social change in Depression-era Sydney

The third novel from Australian writer Kelly (aka book editor Kim Swivel), set in Depression-era Sydney, excels at depicting the era’s social conditions and the swoony exuberance and thorny complications of cross-class romance. The story unfolds through the internal musings of Irish-born Catholic Eoghan O’Keenan, recently let go from his factory job, and ambitious designer Olivia Greene, daughter of a viscount who abandoned her and her mother.

After Eoghan (“Yo”) flees the grime and alcoholism of the slums with his seven-year-old sister, Agnes, he encounters Olivia by chance in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Although there’s an instantaneous mutual attraction, their relationship progresses at a realistically sedate pace. They remain separated for long periods, while Olivia attracts new clientele to her and her mother’s couturier business and Eoghan takes a dangerous job catching rivets 300 feet above water during the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The stream-of-consciousness style takes getting used to, for Olivia in particular. Her unfiltered thoughts, full of energy and interjections, follow wherever her mind rambles. The couple’s viewpoints and vocabularies reflect their personalities, though. Both are caring people, and the narrative technique makes their sentiments toward one another feel startlingly real and honest.

The historical setting, presented clearly, plays a significant role. With Britain demanding repayment of Australia’s war debts, unemployment runs high, and there are growing pockets of civil unrest. The “blue mile” of the title refers to the overcrowded waterway dividing the city and the immense distances in faith and class separating Eoghan and Olivia. The Sydney Harbour Bridge’s massive arch, its two halves joining together at last in 1932, becomes a symbol of hope, but both the city and couple undergo significant strain before they can move forward. All of the details on the broader social context enhance the telling of a beautiful love story.

The Blue Mile was published by Macmillan Australia in 2014 (trade pb, A$29.99, 464pp).  I had picked it up as a Kindle copy, which is currently for sale at US$9.99.  This review first appeared in May's Historical Novels Review and is my third entry for the Australian Women Writers Challenge.

A gallery of new & upcoming historical novels from Canada

This latest gallery (see the tag Visual Previews for more) covers a dozen new and upcoming historical novels from Canadian publishers. The novels themselves are set all over the place: Canada, certainly, in the 19th and 20th centuries, but also 16th-century Istanbul, medieval Scotland, WWII France, and colonial America.

As an American reader, I often find it difficult to find new HF offerings from Canada; they're hard to track down through online bookstore listings.  I discovered a few of these through the authors' social media posts, and others through newspaper reviews, browsing publishers' catalogs, or because of my work with the Historical Novels Review.  I welcome suggestions for other books in the comments.



The life story of Camille Claudel, sculptor and mistress of Rodin, intertwines with that of the nurse who cares for her in France's Montdevergues Asylum in 1943.  Cormorant, May 2015.



This literary cowboy novel tells the adventures of John Ware (1845–1905), a former slave from South Carolina who established a successful ranch in southern Alberta.  TouchWood Editions, May 2015.



"But then she buys a rifle, and everything changes." The tale of the intrepid Abigail Peacock and her adventures (and those of other Western notables) in the late 19th-century Canadian and American West.  I'll be reading it shortly.  Brindle & Glass, June 2015.



A literary novel of freedom and re-invention, centering on a young Finnish woman who takes a road trip across the Canadian prairie in the '30s with a stranger she meets at a dance.  McClelland & Stewart, Feb 2015.


An epic love story between a soldier from Nova Scotia and a young Frenchwoman during WWI, set in the French countryside and in Halifax.  Simon & Schuster Canada, April 2015.



A young piano prodigy's coming of age, and the redemptive power of music, set in Depression-era Montreal.  Cormorant, May 2015.



A literary tall tale exploring the full-bodied life of Daniel Boone, set during the American Revolution.  Love the title.  Knopf Canada, Feb 2015.



A British war widow and a Nova Scotian schoolteacher unexpectedly join forces in post-WWI Alberta to help combat the spread of VD in the province. The author is the wife of Canada's Governor General.  Dundurn, April 2014.



This sequel to the bestselling The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi is a story of faith and forbidden love set in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire.  Aged 89 when her latest was published, Park is currently writing volume three. House of Anansi, October 2014.



For her latest work of literary fiction, Powning (The Sea Captain's Wife, reviewed here in 2011) turns to the story of English-born Mary Dyer, who traveled to America in the 1630s and found the Puritan church of the Massachusetts Bay Colony horrifically intolerant. Knopf Canada, April 2015.



The "farmerettes" are six young woman, recent high school grads, who form bonds, find love, and face heartbreak as they work together on a family farm, taking the place of men off fighting overseas during the summer of 1943.  A YA novel.  Second Story, April 2015.



Somehow I missed that Jack Whyte had a new book out.  This newest in his Scottish series is subtitled "a tale of Andrew Murray," a military leader who became a Guardian of Scotland. Viking Canada, November 2014.