Two new and substantial historical novel reissues: Zemindar and Csardas

Reissues can bring new life and many new readers to older, classic novels.  Both Valerie Fitzgerald's Zemindar (1981) and Diane Pearson's Csardas (1975) were bestsellers in their day: massive, sweeping epics set during volatile historical eras.  Both have been compared to Gone with the Wind in terms of their scope and the quality of their storytelling.

Zemindar, a novel of adventure and romance set against the backdrop of a troubled 1850s India, won the Historical Novel Prize in Memory of Georgette Heyer as an unpublished manuscript and was published by The Bodley Head shortly thereafter.  When I was pulling together a list of the prize's winners in 2010, I wrote that it was a "prime candidate for reissue."  Zemindar, the author's only novel, was based on her grandmother's experiences during the Sepoy Mutiny.

Csardas, named after a traditional Hungarian folk dance, tells the story of two aristocratic Hungarian sisters whose lives and fortunes change dramatically during the two world wars.  Pearson, who has been writing since 1967, was president of the UK's Romantic Novelists Association for 25 years.

Both Zemindar and Csardas were reissued by the UK publisher Head of Zeus in trade paperback in 2014.  Check out the gorgeous new packaging!  My copy of the 1985 mass market paperback of Zemindar (which is in great condition but has teeny tiny print) stands in the background.

I'm looking forward to reading them both and would welcome the thoughts of anyone who's already read them. At the moment, American readers will have to order them from elsewhere, but I'll update you if there's more news on that score.  I'll provide some links here because there are multiple out of print editions on bookseller sites, which can make it hard to find the new ones.  Here are the UK buying options for Zemindar and Csardas on Head of Zeus's page (both are £15.00).  At other sites, such as Chapters.ca and Amazon.ca, I recommend searching by ISBN to find the right ones:  9781781857519 (Csardas), or 9781781859544 (Zemindar).

All of the books in the pic above were personal purchases.

Valerie Fitzgerald, who's in her 80s and living in Ottawa, recently gave an interview with the Ottawa Citizen in celebration of the re-release, speaking about her childhood in India, her writing career, and her thoughts looking back on Zemindar 34 years later. 

Since I'd written about Zemindar previously on the blog, her grandson's wife recently got in touch to tell me about the new edition, the newspaper interview, and another interview that Valerie Fitzgerald would be doing with CBC Radio.  That interview aired yesterday afternoon and is available at the CBC site.  It's 13 minutes long, and I found it completely fascinating to hear her discuss her life, the background to the book, some fun stories about the industry, and why she never wrote another novel.  I highly recommend taking the time to listen to it.

An interview with Gary Inbinder, author of The Devil in Montmartre

Today I'm hosting an interview with novelist Gary Inbinder.  His third novel The Devil in Montmartre,  released last month, brings readers into the bustling fine art scene and dark underworld of Paris in 1889.  As the city is flooded with tourists during the Universal Exposition, Inspector Achille Lefebvre, a young but highly regarded member of the Sûreté, investigates the murder of a young woman who danced the Can-Can at the Moulin Rouge.

~

The Devil in Montmartre stands well on its own, but one of your protagonists, the talented artist Marcia Brownlow – probably my favorite character – also featured in The Flower to the Painter. What made you decide to bring Marcia back for an encore appearance?

Marcia Brownlow is one of my favorite characters. After I finished The Flower to the Painter I had the idea of using her, and some of the other characters, in another novel. A fin de siècle Paris setting appealed to me, as did the idea of a murder mystery with references to Jack the Ripper.

The action in the novel unfolds through many different viewpoints. How difficult of a process was it to piece together and structure the novel in this way? 

I had used a first person narrative in earlier novels, but I found the single perspective too limiting for this particular story. On the other hand, using multiple first person narrators seemed too complicated and potentially confusing. So, I struck a balance by using a third person narrative with multiple points of view. Once I got into it, it seemed to flow quite naturally.

I’d love to know more about your research into Montmartre in 1889, since I felt fully immersed in the setting. Based on the depth of detail, I’m guessing you know French and have spent time walking around Paris in person, though please correct me if I’m wrong!

Two admissions. First, I had two years of college French. I can still read French fairly well, but I wouldn't attempt to write or speak it. Second, my knowledge of 1889 Paris is dependent on imagination and years of reading histories and period literature, studying old photographs, paintings, drawings, maps and so forth. Of course, for months prior to writing The Devil in Montmartre, I added to my knowledge with additional research.

Your detective, Achille Lefebvre, is well-respected by his fellow detectives and known even in less reputable circles to be a trustworthy fellow. He’s not just an admirable character, though, but a likeable one. How did you come up with his personality? Will we be seeing more of him in future books?

I'm glad you liked Achille. I particularly enjoyed writing his scenes and dialogue. He combines traits of my favorite fictional detectives, including Simenon's Maigret and Sherlock Holmes. However, I tried to "humanize" him by focusing on his domestic life, especially his relationship with his wife, little daughter, and difficult mother-in-law. As for future books, there's a sequel in the works but it's a bit premature to say anything more about it.

Achille runs into some resistance when he advocates for the use of fingerprinting as an aid in solving crimes. Why was this viewed as such a radical development?

At the time, no major police force had used fingerprinting for identification purposes. However, the English anthropologist, Sir Francis Galton, published his system for fingerprint identification in the late 1880s, something I mention in the novel. In 1892, Juan Vucetich, a Croatian detective working for the Argentine police, made the first positive identification of fingerprints in a criminal case. Vucetich based his identification and classification system on Galton's writings, but it took more than a decade before police departments worldwide adopted it.

Interestingly, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, anticipated the use of a fingerprint to solve a crime in a chapter of Life on the Mississippi (1883) and he revisited the subject in The Tragedy of Puddn'head Wilson (1894).

Your three novels convey some of the same themes – artistic creation, for one – and are set in historical times, but are a bit different genre-wise. What prompted your move into historical crime?

I'm a retired lawyer, I've had some experience working with law enforcement, and I'm partial to good historical fiction and classic crime novels. The historical mystery/crime genre offered a good vehicle in which to express my varied interests, and I just decided it was the right time to give it a try.

What originally inspired your interest in French art during the late 19th century? Do you have any favorite painters, post-Impressionist or otherwise?

I grew up with art. My late brother was a fine artist and art teacher, and my older sister majored in Art History and did some of her post graduate work at The Sorbonne. As I recall, among the first books that caught my attention when I was learning to read—or perhaps even before I could read—was a set of illustrated biographies of the painters, including Manet, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. My parents took me to the Art Institute of Chicago when I was very young. The paintings fascinated me, and the museum has a fine collection of French Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, including Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

In addition, I saw the films Lust for Life, the story of Van Gogh with Kirk Douglas, and John Huston's version of Moulin Rouge with Jose Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec. These have remained favorites, which I've returned to over the years. As a result, I have many sources to draw upon when visualizing scenes for my novels.

~

Gary Inbinder's The Devil in Montmartre was published by Pegasus Crime in December (hardcover, $25.95, 256pp).  Visit the author's blog at http://garyinbinder.blogspot.com.

Greer Macallister's The Magician's Lie, an involving tale of deception, female agency, and fin-de-siècle magic

A while back, in the comments I made following my review of Timothy Schaffert’s The Swan Gondola, I confessed that I don’t usually go for novels about circuses and fairs and things of that nature. Although I loved that particular book.

Then I read and reviewed Rosie Thomas’ The Illusionists, about a troupe of magicians in Victorian London, and enjoyed that one, too.

Now, when presented with a 3rd recent historical novel about magic and magicians, I had no qualms about picking it up, and I’m very glad I did. The storyline grabbed me from the first paragraph, and the pacing and narrative tension remained strong through the end. Although I had correctly guessed part of the conclusion, other aspects were a surprise.

Guess it’s time for me to revisit my reading preferences – at least in terms of magicians.  (I still don't like circuses.)

Set amid the alluring world of stage magic at the turn of the 20th century, Greer Macallister’s The Magician’s Lie is a novel about reality and illusion, love and betrayal, wealth and destitution, confidence and fear, truth and deception – and how quickly one can transform into the other.

The premise is thus. In Waterloo, Iowa, one evening in 1905, hours after the renowned female magician known as the Amazing Arden performs a unique variation on her controversial “Halved Man” trick, the bloodied body of a man – her husband – is found stuffed into a smashed wooden container beneath the stage. Had she killed him before the crowd as part of her act? Seizing the opportunity, Virgil Holt, a down-on-his-luck police officer from the nearby town of Janesville, catches the beautiful young woman during her planned escape and carts her into the station for questioning.

Arden claims not to know that anyone was murdered, but Holt doesn’t believe her. She insists he’ll be killing her if he doesn’t let her go. Not convinced, but willing to listen, he handcuffs her wrists to a chair to prevent her from fleeing and demands to know the truth.

And so she spins a tale about her life and career that takes her from Tennessee farm country to the vaudeville circuit and on to national fame as a brilliant and daring performer. (There’s plenty more, but I won’t be giving it away.) Is it fact or fancy or some of each? Either way, her story is so diverting that it’s easy to forget the author behind the curtain.

Edgy and exciting, The Magician’s Lie is a fast-moving historical novel that I would also recommend as a “gateway book” for introducing historical fiction to newcomers. Arden’s voice is fresh, appealing, and (seemingly) sympathetic. Without overburdening them with details, Macallister offers readers many informative new tidbits, such as the inner workings of specific magic tricks. She also presents the life of an itinerant performer in the late 19th century from an unusual viewpoint: that of a woman.

In the “conversation with the author” at the end (please save it until later if you plan to read the book!), Macallister says that since she was new to historical fiction, the writing process took about five years from initial idea to final draft. It may have required a lot of time and effort, but I think she got the difficult balance of fact and fiction pretty much right.

The Magician’s Lie is published by Sourcebooks Landmark this month (312pp, $23.99 hardcover, $9.60 on Kindle). It was on the LibraryReads list for January. I picked it up as an ARC at the publisher’s BEA booth last summer.

Historical fiction at ALA Midwinter: galleys, authors, signings

I've been an American Library Association member for 20 years, but this year will be the first time I'll be attending ALA Midwinter.  The conference will be held in Chicago on January 30 - February 3, so it's relatively close by.  I'm looking forward to catching up with other librarians, cruising the exhibit hall, and reviewing job seekers' resumes in the Placement Center.  Needless to say I'm hoping for decent weather.

Here's what I've managed to gather together as far as historical novels and novelists present at the show.  Sources include Library Journal, publisher announcements, and the ALA Midwinter site.

~Galleys available~

Barbara Hoffert of Library Journal has already put together an amazing galley guide for Midwinter, so I'm not going to copy over all of the relevant HF info; just click on over to visit the LJ site.  The guide is very detailed and lists settings for most of the historical novels being given away at publishers' booths, so you should be able to pick them out easily.

I have a number of galleys already thanks to publishers, Booklist, and Edelweiss, but just a few of the others I'm particularly eager about are:  Shona Patel's Flame Tree Road (MIRA, June), set in late 19th-century India, which she says on her FB page is about Dadamoshai, Layla's grandfather from Teatime for the Firefly; Jami Attenberg's Saint Mazie (Grand Central, June), set in NYC's Lower East Side during the Jazz Age; Anna Freeman's The Fair Fight (Riverhead, April), female boxers in 18th-c England (have heard great reports about it); and Susanna Kearsley's A Desperate Fortune (Sourcebooks, April), another Scottish-set romantic timeslip.

~Author appearances and signings~

Elizabeth Berg, The Dream Lover
French novelist George Sand looks back on her long, eventful, controversial life.
Monday 2/2, United for Libraries Gala Author Tea, 2-4pm, Hilton Chicago, Williford Room.  Tickets required; check for prices and details.

Elizabeth Blackwell, While Beauty Slept
A retelling of "Sleeping Beauty" set in a kingdom based on medieval Europe.
Saturday 1/31, author appearance 11:00 am–12:00 pm, Pop Top Science Fiction/Fantasy Panel, McCormick Place West; signing 2:00-3:00 pm, Penguin booth 4823.

C. W. Gortner, Mademoiselle Chanel
Imagines the life of iconic 20th-century designer Coco Chanel.
Sunday 2/1, signing 9-10am, HarperCollins booth 4526; also 2/1, author appearance 10-11am, "stories of women pursuing their destiny," Pop Top Stage, McCormick Place West.

Marci Jefferson, Enchantress of Paris
Fiction about Marie Mancini in the court of the Sun King.
Friday 1/30, signing 5:30-7pm, Macmillan booth 4613.

Renee Rosen, What the Lady Wants
Subtitled "a novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age."
Saturday 1/31, signing 1-2pm, Penguin booth 2823; Monday 2/2, 10-11am, author appearance at Pop Top Local Author Panel, McCormick Place West.

Mary Doria Russell, Epitaph
Novel of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in the Old West.
Monday 2/2, signing 11am-noon, HarperCollins booth 4526.

What galleys are you looking forward to the most, and what else am I missing?  I know Chicago's not known as a hot spot in January, but even so, this seems like a short list.  Please leave a comment if you know of other signings or author appearances. The list is correct as far as I'm aware, but suggestions for corrections/changes are very welcome. 

Book review, with notes: Kate Alcott's A Touch of Stardust

Alcott should entrance large audiences with her stellar historical novel, which follows fictional Indiana native Julie Crawford after she moves to Los Angeles in 1938 to become a screenwriter. Readers expecting a rehash of a familiar plotline, however—that of a young hopeful becoming disillusioned by the emptiness beneath Hollywood’s glitzy veneer—will find something more nuanced and substantive.

Working as an assistant to exuberant blonde actress Carole Lombard, who hails from her hometown, Julie gets pulled into the activity surrounding the filming of Gone with the Wind, costarring Clark Gable, the still-married man Carole loves (and vice versa). On and off the set, considerable drama unfolds; all the actors and crew are subjected to the single-minded vision of its controlling producer, David Selznick.

Both Carole and diminutive brunette Vivien Leigh light up the page in their scenes, and Julie’s story line holds its own alongside theirs. As she sheds her midwestern naïveté and works hard on a screenplay in her free time, her romance with a Jewish assistant producer draws in themes of prejudice and hypocrisy.

The briskly paced narrative captivates as it lets readers view the creation of silver-screen magic, and it’s also a terrific tribute to the industry pioneers, like screenwriter Frances Marion, who helped others jump-start their dreams.

~

A Touch of Stardust will be published by Doubleday next month ($25, hardcover, 304pp).  I wrote this starred review for Booklist's November 15th issue.  Some additional notes:

- "Kate Alcott" is a pseudonym for veteran novelist and journalist Patricia O'Brien, and this is the only novel of hers written under this name that I've read (the first, a breakout hit, was The Dressmaker).

- However, I thoroughly enjoyed her earlier novel written as O'Brien, Harriet & Isabella, about the relationship between 19th-century sisters Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker as they revisit the adultery trial of their brother, charismatic preacher Henry Ward Beecher.  Apparently this book didn't perform well sales-wise, which eventually led to her adoption of a pseudonym, but I suspect that had less to do with the quality of the story than the fact that the Beecher family are no longer household names.  I love this period in American history, though, and highly recommend this underrated novel.  I interviewed O'Brien about Harriet & Isabella here back in 2008.

- In addition to everything I mentioned in the review, Alcott also smoothly intertwines a secondary thread involving the African-American actors (Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen) in GWTW, particularly their conflict between the breakout opportunity the film was for them and the demeaning roles they played.  Although they were respected as professionals by their fellow actors, this wasn't the case everywhere.  In the novel, as in history, Clark Gable was outraged and outspoken on their behalf when they experienced instances of segregation on set and at the time of the film's premiere.

- The cover design has changed since the ARC; the final one, above, is an improvement in my opinion.  Very classy.

-  A Touch of Stardust is one of 10 titles on the February 2015 LibraryReads list.  These are the top 10 reads for a given month selected by public library staff members across the U.S. (as an academic librarian, unfortunately I can't participate in this initiative, but I enjoy seeing what this group comes up with).  I've read three of the ten for February and will be posting reviews of the remaining two (The Siege Winter and The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy) shortly.

The 2014 Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction: Winner and Honorees

The winner of the 2014 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize for American Historical Fiction is Kimberly Elkins' What Is Visible (Twelve, 2014).

From the judges' remarks in the press release:

"This novel lyrically revives a significant and intriguing figure in the history of disability. Laura Bridgman (d. 1889) was a celebrity in her lifetime. Stripped of sight, hearing, taste and smell by scarlet fever in her childhood, Bridgman served as a poster child for the Perkins School for the Blind and various intellectual causes such as phrenology and anti-Calvinism.

"What sets this novel apart is the author’s ability to imagine Laura Bridgman’s world and to give her a powerful narrative voice. With skill and compassion, Elkins portrays Bridgman as a complicated character whose strengths and flaws grow more complex as the story progresses. Historical details enrich the story, and the author deftly exposes the care and treatment of the disabled during the 1800s. This is American historical fiction at its best."

The 2014 Honorable Mention went to Catherine Bell's Rush of Shadows (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2014), a "sparsely but beautifully written novel" that focuses on farmers of Northern California’s Sacramento Valley and their encounters with the native Digger Indians in the 1850s.

From the judges' comments: "This is truly fresh material. The Trail of Tears is well-known, but Indian removals in California are relatively obscure. The characters are well-drawn and the descriptions vivid. A beautiful book."

Finally, Laila Lalami's The Moor's Account (Pantheon, 2014) was named as the Director's Mention for 2014.

"While The Moor's Account does not fully meet the requirements for the prize," the judges note, it is praised as an "extraordinary, pitch-perfect work of historical fiction about the Narváez expedition in Florida."

For more on the prize and the full announcement of this year's honorees, see the Langum Charitable Trust. To submit a novel for consideration, view the directions available at the site; the Trust has also issued guidelines used by their readers and selection committee, which authors should find useful as well. The prize is awarded annually to the "best book in American historical fiction that is both excellent fiction and excellent history."

Past years' winners include Gary Schanbacher's Crossing Purgatory, Ron Rash's The Cove, Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic, Ann Weisgarber's The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, Edward Rutherfurd's New York, and Kathleen Kent's The Heretic's Daughter.

Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy, a little-known American story worth learning

Whether you read historical fiction to be educated, entertained, or both, Citizens Creek will get you squared away.

The title refers to a people rather than a place, just one of the many aspects of the novel that will make you think. It spans almost a century in the lives of Cow Tom and his granddaughter Rose, from his youth as a slave and hilis haya (healer) of cattle on an Upper Creek chief’s Alabama plantation through her later years as an Oklahoma rancher and family matriarch.

Their struggles and rise to prominence make for a classic American success story, and it’s especially inspiring because the characters are based on historical people. They deserve to be more widely known, and Tademy has done well in resurrecting them in her latest work of fiction.

In 1822, when he’s twelve years old, Cow Tom’s mentor, Old Turtle, tells him: “Owned by tribe’s not the same as tribe.” One of Cow Tom’s lifelong goals is to secure freedom and tribal citizenship for all people of African descent living within the Creek Nation. He has a talent for languages, which puts him in demand as a translator during the whites’ Indian wars and their harsh Removal policy, in which tribes living east of the Mississippi were displaced to lands in the West.

Cow Tom also remains determined to find his mother, who was stolen away by Seminoles when he was a child, and uses every possible opportunity on his assignments in Florida to locate her. His achievements on behalf of other African Creeks are impressive (I won’t spoil the details for those who don’t know them), but he also does some things he’s ashamed of. For Rose, being chosen years later as the recipient and bearer of his personal history is equally an honor and a burden.

This is the type of novel that’s best read slowly and carefully. Sometimes one chapter will follow closely upon another, while at other times they’re set years apart. The author’s admirable aim of covering such a wide stretch of years gives the book an episodic feel in places. There are so many people in it with interesting stories and backstories, though. Cow Tom’s wife Amy, for instance, is a smart, tough woman who could easily have starred in a novel herself.

In turning up slices of history unknown to most readers, Tademy has written a stirring work about endurance, liberty, family, and belonging. Cow Tom’s own words to Rose in the novel describe his journey best:

“From early, I had to aim higher than my name, an offhand thing tossed out to make it easier for someone to call me. The name fit, far as it went, but I was more than a tender of cows. I was a tender of words, and of people, and master of myself.”

Citizens Creek was published by Atria/Simon & Schuster in November ($26.00, hardcover, 432pp). Thanks to the publisher for granting me access via Edelweiss.

Etowah: Trade Center of the Mississippian Culture, a guest post by Kristin Gleeson

When Kristin Gleeson first mentioned her idea to contribute an essay about Etowah, I was intrigued and expressed interest in learning more.  Here she presents an introduction to it and other large American cities that flourished across the continent before the Europeans arrived.

 ~

Etowah: Trade Center of the Mississippian Culture

Kristin Gleeson

Twelfth-century America is the setting for a large portion of my novel, Along the Far Shores, which uses the legend of Prince Madog of Wales’ voyage to America as a framework for the plot. The legend puts Madog/Madoc in Mobile Bay and up along the Mississippian Valley, in Southeastern part of North America, an area and time period virtually unknown to most people.

Mention the Aztec, Maya and Inca, whose existence overlapped in this time, and so many images come to mind: pyramid temples, gold hoards, bloody sacrifices, elaborate sculptures and ball games where the losing sides were sacrificed. There is also the well-known story of the Aztec chief, Montezuma, who was captured and eventually killed by the Spaniards in the 15th century. Few people, however, would know about the Mississippian culture, which flourished for almost 900 years, c. 600-1500 A.D., and, like the more well-known Central and South American counterparts, had great urban centers, some of them more populous than any city of Europe at the time.

It was along the fertile valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries that these cities arose. Ocmulgee, Etowah, Cahokia, Moundville and Spiro were some of the biggest cities. The region stretched from the Atlantic coast to Arkansas and Oklahoma and up as far as Wisconsin. A new strain of maize and later Mexican beans and squash supported this growing population that previously had been limited by dependence for food on game or fish that might be scarce in any given year. With a reliable food source, these communities were able to turn their attention to fashioning pottery, pipes, cups, jewelry, head ornaments of feathers and copper, wooden and stone sculptures, woven articles, cloth and copper products. The pipes, for example, used often for ceremonial purposes, were elaborately carved from materials like obsidian or bauxite into mythical figures such as Big Boy, the warrior priest dressed in a falcon costume, who also appeared on shells and copper plates. Or like the two sculpted marble figures, a man and a woman, nearly 3 feet tall found at Etowah.

Marble effigies from the Etowah Mound C, ca. 1375.  Source: Herb Roe via Wikimedia Commons

All these items Etowah and other cities traded along with raw commodities like obsidian, gold, silver and conch shells. Trade grew into important networks that linked much of the Midwest and East. Such links offered many chances for sharing and improving skills, acquiring or modifying languages, religious and cultural practices.

Etowah, located in north central Georgia, was one of the largest cities of the Mississippian culture, and its remains are still evident. Surrounded by a moat and a bastioned wooden palisade, it had six earthen mounds that loomed over the city. The three largest mounds were grouped around a large plaza, the most central one rising 61 feet with a base that covered about 3 acres. Its flattened top extended to about ¾ size of a football field and commanded an impressive view of the surrounding plain. A second plaza, paved with clay was to the east and had a ramp that extended from the plaza to the summit of the first mound.

A pic of the Etowah Mound Site in Cartersville, Ga.  Source: Herb Roe via Wikimedia Commons

In later centuries a small elite, The Nobles/Honored Men, lived on top of the mounds near to the all-important temple. Their houses were colorfully painted and decorated with elaborate designs and housed richly carved items. The commoners living in the plains below the nobles dubbed “the Stinkards.” The Great Sun was the leader and his relatives, known as Suns, held the city’s administrative positions. The political dominance of this elite group usually extended beyond the city to the surrounding areas, where lesser chiefs ruled small towns. All members of the region and the city were obligated to send tribute to the Great Sun periodically. Once the Great Sun died, this strong regional network often fragmented if there wasn’t a strong person to replace him.

Etowah and the other cities remained largely autonomous, but extensive economic and kin ties created far-flung alliances and rivalries so that the competition for power and prestige gradually intensified over the centuries. Ancestral obligations became more important, as did celebrations of successful harvests, hunts and warfare.

Other rituals, like ball games, became increasingly important and had deep religious connections. It is possible these ball games may have been the origin of the popular Boskita and Chunkey played in parts of the Southeast in later times. Boskita was like an earlier form of lacrosse with up to 60 players on each side, with up to five squads. Players carried two sticks shaped somewhat like a tennis rackets strung with deer hide thongs. The field was nearly a quarter of a mile long with a goal at each end formed by two uprights and a crossbar. Chunkey, on the other hand, was played with a disk, 3 to 6 inches in diameter, made from stone. These ball games appear to have had various meanings, some of them representing man and the cosmos.

With the arrival of De Soto and other Europeans in the 1500s, disease and disorder overtook the Mississippian cities that weren’t already in decline and decimated the population. There were too few people to construct massive earthworks, host elaborate rituals and celebrations or pay tribute to an exalted leader on the scale of previous time periods. Smaller bands and communities survived and eked their living to the best of their ability while only remnants of rituals and crafts remained.

~

Originally from Philadelphia, Kristin Gleeson lives in Ireland, in the West Cork Gaeltacht, where she teaches art classes, plays harp, sings in an Irish choir and runs two book clubs for the village library. She combines her love of myths with her harp playing and performed as a professional harper/storyteller at events in Britain, America and Ireland. She holds a Masters in Library Science and a Ph.D. in history, and for a time was an administrator of a national archives, library and museum in America. Her newest novel, Along the Far Shores, was published in November by An Tig Beag ($12.99 pb, $2.99 ebook).

Galápagos Regained by James Morrow, a satirical romp through 19th-century South America

Morrow’s newest cheerfully provocative epic stars the intrepid Chloe Bathurst, who takes a job as Charles Darwin’s assistant zookeeper after getting fired from the Victorian theater. To raise cash to free her indebted father from the workhouse, she decides to enter the Shelley Society’s lucrative contest, which aims to settle the “pesky God question” for good.

When her employer declines to use his unpublished evolutionary theory to grab the winnings for himself, Chloe secretly copies his treatise, secures funding and a ship, and heads for the Galápagos isles to gather evidence for his Tree of Life. As she and her eccentric fellow travelers descend into the Amazon jungle while traversing South America, they encounter many obstacles.

The lofty narrative tone lends period authenticity, and there are some great comic moments as the characters undergo crises of faith. Fans of quest adventures may find the pacing exasperatingly sluggish, as the plot often gets buried under numerous details and digressions. For those fascinated by the meeting point between theology and science, though, it should be a rewarding expedition.

Galápagos Regained was published this week in hardcover by St. Martin's (496pp, $27.99).  This review first appeared in Booklist's December 15th issue.

Some notes:

- I loved James Morrow's The Last Witchfinder, which (like this one) is a picaresque adventure novel about a woman's quest. It's set in Restoration England and 18th-century America and takes on the themes of bigotry and superstition during the age of witch-hunting.  From the first sentence ("May I speak candidly, fleshling, one rational creature to another, myself a book and you a reader?" – it's narrated by the Principia Mathematica, you see), I was captured by the writing, humor, and originality.  Definitely recommended.  I reviewed it for Booklist in 2006; it was my first starred review for them.

- Galápagos Regained started out promisingly for me as well.  The scenes on Darwin's estate in England are terrific, and the author's wit is as sharp and clever as always, but other parts were, well, simply too long and detailed.  Reviews are mixed; Kirkus wasn't keen, Library Journal loved it, and Publishers Weekly admired its sense of fun but also said it was overlong.  I cautiously recommend it and would be interested to hear what others think, if you decide to read it.

Book review: Tessa Arlen's Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman

Combining the pleasurable dramas of the English country house novel and the richly detailed, tense atmosphere of a historical mystery, this involving debut features the unusual detective partnership between an aristocrat and her housekeeper. That said, the Countess of Montfort and Mrs. Jackson are not exactly BFFs. Tessa Arlen is too attuned to early 20th-century class distinctions to let that happen. When asked by her desperate employer to observe conversations below stairs at Iyntwood and report back, Mrs. Jackson is appalled, but her allegiance to the family she serves prods her along.

The murder victim of the title is Teddy Mallory, the spoiled only son of Lord Montfort’s sister. While everyone is horrified by the circumstances of his death (he’s found hanging from a gamekeeper’s gibbet the morning after the Montforts’ renowned summer party), he wasn’t well-liked. The mostly-unlamented Teddy has a long history of disreputable behavior, some of which is yet undiscovered. Even more curiously, two women, one a houseguest and one a new maid named Violet, vanished the same day.

The arrival of an aggressive Scotland Yard investigator with no respect for his betters throws the household into even more disarray. Because the Montforts’ heir, Harry, was seen having a vicious argument with Teddy, he appears guilty at first. However, his mother, Clementine, believes in his innocence and enlists Mrs Jackson to keep her ears to the ground.

Among the houseguests are a dizzying bevy of socialites, introduced for the most part all at once. The characters have the advantage here, since they know who’s who better than readers will, but over the course of the novel, their distinctive personalities sort themselves out.

The shifting rapport between the central pair of allies – an unconventional yet privileged noblewoman and an upper servant whose brusque efficiency and “hierarchical cast of mind” belie her relative youth – is one of the novel’s high points. Arlen has a firm grasp on period mindsets and, as expected of any novel set in England in 1913, she inserts relevant details on the changes sweeping the country, such as women’s suffrage – a movement many female characters resist.

The lovely descriptions of the rolling green countryside around Iyntwood place us right into that glorious setting. Through its master’s thoughtful reflections on his “still-feudal way of life” while on a morning’s ride around his estates, we also get a solid sense of his family’s long-entrenched relationship with the land and his protectiveness toward his servants – even though, he admits, he “wasn’t terribly sure what Violet looked like.” The book is full of these small but telling details.

In this not-quite cozy mystery, the resolution to the crime unfolds in a logical manner. Sufficient clues are planted to let readers guess the culprit a bit early. Since they make an impressive and successful team, I hope Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson will join their wits again in future volumes – in particular, it should be interesting to see how much the characters relax their social attitudes as World War I gets underway.

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Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman will be published by Minotaur/St. Martin's Press tomorrow in hardcover ($25.99, 320pp).  This post is among the first out of the gate for the blog tour hosted by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.  Thanks to the publisher for approving my NetGalley copy.

Looking back on 2014: A dozen excellent historical reads

This is another of those "favorite books" posts that have been springing up on numerous blogs at the end of the year.  I thought about coming up with 10, but that was too difficult, so I decided on a dozen – and choosing even those was a challenge.

According to Goodreads, I read 109 books during 2014, and most were strong, good-looking, and above average.  A fair many were excellent, and if I thought about my picks even more, I might have come up with a different list.  These are all books I read during the last year, even if they were published earlier, or will be published later.

I found it interesting to see there isn't much overlap with the Goodreads list for Best Historical Fiction, as voted on by readers.  I've read only five of the 20 finalists, and just two (My Name Is Resolute and Secret Life of Violet Grant) made it to my list.  Another, Emma Donoghue's Frog Music, was outstanding, but I read it as an ARC in 2013. 

Hope you all had a good reading year, and I'm looking forward to the new crop of books in 2015. Thanks for reading along with me.

And now for the list.  The links lead to my reviews of the books, if they exist.

Joseph Boyden, The Orenda (Knopf, 2014). Boyden’s mesmerizing third novel sits at the confluence of three civilizations in 17th-century Ontario: the French, the Iroquois, and the Huron (Wendat). Despite the cultures’ disparate beliefs, the author remains clear-sighted and impartial, and the scenes of Native spirituality are beautifully rendered.

Alix Christie, Gutenberg’s Apprentice (Harper, 2014). This gorgeously written debut, an inspiring tale of ambition, camaraderie, betrayal, and cultural transformation set in the cathedral city of fifteenth-century Mainz, dramatizes the creation of the Gutenberg Bible. I hadn’t heard of Peter Schoeffer or his important historical role before this, and it was a revelation.

Charles Finch, The Laws of Murder (Minotaur, 2014). Set in 1876 London and featuring gentleman detective Charles Lenox as he gets pulled into a Scotland Yard investigation with links to his own past, this stellar mystery is chock full of atmosphere and twisty, dramatic surprises. I jumped into Finch's series with this 8th volume without much trouble.

C. W. Gortner, Mademoiselle Chanel (William Morrow, 2015). Disclaimer: the author is a good friend, and I read this as a manuscript. That said, I honestly feel this is his best novel yet, an engrossing story of 20th-century designer Coco Chanel: her career successes, her love affairs, her hidden vulnerabilities. For those weary of “famous guy’s wife” novels, many of which explore unfulfilled ambitions, this convincing vision of a driven, powerful woman is an ideal antidote.

Alexis Landau, Empire of the Senses (Pantheon, 2015). I’ll be reviewing this later on so won’t say very much about it now. This ARC arrived with little fanfare (plain tan cover, no other material), but I was immediately swept into an absorbing saga about a family of mixed faith living in WWI-era and late 1920s Berlin.

Laurie Loewenstein, Unmentionables (Akashic, 2014). This warmhearted, involving work, situated gracefully in small-town Illinois and overseas during the WWI years, depicts a wide range of social concerns as people's minds are opened to new, previously hidden possibilities.

Rett MacPherson, Sleeping the Churchyard Sleep (Word Posse, 2014). When Olivia VanBibber and her brother bring a plate of their great-aunt’s fried chicken over to the home of a newly arrived stranger, their surprising friendship transforms her world – and eventually pulls her into a genealogical mystery. A warm-hearted, stereotype-free portrait of 1950s West Virginia, and the witty, forthright narrative voice of Olivia (a polio survivor who uses a wheelchair) is irresistible.

Marschel Paul, The Spirit Room (Wasteland Press, 2013). This epic about two teenage sisters’ coming of age in 1850s New York State, set against a vivid backdrop of quirky social fads and dark situations, is a fabulous read for fans of American women’s history. I picked this up on a whim when I was supposed to be reading something else and got drawn right in.

Stephanie Thornton, The Tiger Queens (NAL, 2014). A lengthy, immersive read about the extraordinary women who supported Genghis Khan and strengthened his kingdom. It’s full of fascinating detail about 12th-century Mongolia yet the plot moves forward with unstoppable momentum.

Nancy E. Turner, My Name Is Resolute (St. Martin’s, 2014). Resolute Catherine Eugenia Talbot (a fictional character) reveals the story of her eventful life, from her Jamaican childhood through her involvement in the lead-up to the American Revolution. Full of adventure, romance, and unexpected surprises, her account remains captivating throughout its nearly 600 pages.

Various, A Day of Fire (Knight Media, 2014). Six well-known historical authors – Stephanie Dray, Ben Kane, E. Knight, Sophie Perinot, Kate Quinn, and Vicky Alvear Shecter – got together to collaborate on a high-concept novel set in Pompeii at the time of its destruction in 79 AD. This gets my vote for “most creative.” Their stories interlock perfectly, and if you seek out fiction set in the ancient world, it’s not to be missed.

Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant (Putnam, 2014). A dual-period novel – you might call it a historical mystery-thriller-romance – set in WWI-era Oxford and Berlin and also in 1960s Manhattan. The cheeky, whip-smart voice of Vivian Schuyler, a young woman caught up in solving the mystery of her the great-aunt she never knew, won me over completely.

A look at Kate Sedley's The Christmas Wassail

Although December 25th has come and gone, Kate Sedley’s The Christmas Wassail still made for a timely read after the holidays.  It’s set in and around Bristol, England, opening on the day before Christmas Eve in the year 1483 and wrapping up after Epiphany, or Twelfth Night.

All of the religious observations and traditional folk customs held over the twelve days of Christmas are included, which creates a rich cultural atmosphere. On Christmas Day, Roger the Chapman, his wife, and their blended family of four children attend three separate masses. There’s much merriment and drinking of “lamb’s wool” as people travel from house to house during their wassailing, and a group of mummers has come to town to perform.

Amid all the activity, including his investigation of a growing number of murders (since this is a mystery, after all), Roger is charged with finding a suitably large Yule log and keeping it burning for nearly a fortnight.

The crime aspect is introduced through the stabbing death of a city alderman who was a good friend of the wealthy Sir George Marvell, an ornery old man with a healthy libido and a multitude of family problems. Roger finds the victim right before he dies and hears his puzzling last word.

To the dismay of his wife, Adela, Roger has the habit of getting drawn into solving murders, both in Bristol itself and on his many peddling excursions around the countryside. It’s the second marriage for both of them, and their loving but sometimes acrimonious banter is fun to watch. Strong-willed, efficient Adela runs a tight household, or would, if Roger wasn’t away so much, meeting with friends in his favorite tavern or following wherever his curiosity leads him. Roger’s past service on behalf of the Duke of Gloucester, now Richard III, has helped his family rise in the world, so she can’t resent his work too much.

Although The Christmas Wassail is the 22nd (!) volume in the Roger the Chapman series, I didn’t feel disoriented. Enough backstory is provided so that the characters’ relationships are clear. The occasional reference to specific events from earlier volumes flew over my head, but that wasn’t a big deal. There’s enough detail on late medieval life to satisfy historical fiction readers, even those who don’t seek out mysteries. The book was published last year, and so far it marks Roger’s last appearance in fiction, which makes me wonder if there will be any others.  Kate Sedley (a pseudonym) also wrote many novels set in the Middle Ages as Brenda Honeyman and Brenda Clarke, her maiden and married names.

The Christmas Wassail appeared from Severn House in 2013 ($29.95 hb, $9.99 ebook).  I read it from a library copy, and wrote this review on my trip back to Illinois after spending Christmas in Orlando with my in-laws.  Hope you're all having a nice holiday season!

Book review: Jane Austen's First Love by Syrie James

As you can guess from the title, this gently and lovingly told novel imagines young Jane Austen’s first experience with romance, but I would have picked it up for the setting alone. An invitation to spend the summer of 1791 amid fine company at a grand manor in the English countryside was hard to resist.

Fifteen-year-old Jane adores her siblings, including sister Cassandra and brother Edward – who had the good fortune to be adopted by wealthy relatives, and whose upcoming marriage to Elizabeth Bridges, a baronet’s daughter, will serve him well socially. In June, several family groups gather to celebrate their engagement, as well as that of Elizabeth’s sister Fanny. Goodnestone Park in Kent, the ancestral home of the Bridges family, is the center of all the festivities, which include balls, a strawberry-picking excursion, and other distracting pastimes.

Jane, who hasn’t yet “come out” into society (but who has her family's permission to socialize with others within this small group), can’t help but be awed by Edward Taylor, the Bridges’ handsome neighbor. Although he’s only a year older, Mr. Taylor has a wide range of life experiences and has hobnobbed with European nobility. Most of Jane’s knowledge of the wider world comes from book-learning, but her powers of observation are sharp even as a sheltered teenager.

The scenarios that play out at Goodnestone are the author’s invention, though James has ensured that her characters’ backgrounds and personalities reflect the historical evidence. Jane’s growing affections for Edward in the novel are based on a few sentences in letters the author wrote to her sister, referring to Edward Taylor as a man with “beautiful dark eyes” upon whom she “had once fondly doated.”

Her irrepressible and impetuous wit is well evident in James’s writing, which follows Jane at a critical juncture in her young life, a time when she learns for herself not to rely on outer appearances.  Beyond the sweet romance, some deeper issues are touched upon, such as the importance of individuality, the serious meaning behind silly fashion trends, and the inner struggle between ambitions that are achievable and those that aren’t.

Although I found the scenes involving the young people’s amateur theatrics to be too drawn out, I enjoyed this lighthearted excursion into a beloved author’s enigmatic past. It’s especially recommended for fans of Austen-themed fiction and country house sagas.

Jane Austen's First Love was published by Berkley in September (trade paperback, $16.00/Can$18.00, 384pp).

What’s in a Name? Prostitution in Shakespeare’s England, a guest post by Sam Thomas

Sam Thomas is back with a yet another entertaining post marking the paperback release of The Harlot’s Tale, the second book in the Midwife Mystery series. This essay, the second of two, deals with prostitutes in Shakespearean times; his first post, from Tuesday, detailed how he researched their trade in early modern England.

The first book in the series, The Midwife’s Tale is currently available as an E-book for $2.99. (The link is to Amazon, but it’s available in other formats as well. Click here for more buying options.)

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What’s in a Name? Prostitution in Shakespeare’s England

Sam Thomas

As in so many matters touching on the darker side of human behavior, the language of prostitution included all manner of synonyms and euphemisms for the simple word “prostitute.” There was meretrix (from the Latin), putain (French), strumpet, whore, stew (from the infamous brothels, known as “stews of Rome”), quean (or, in many cases, abominable quean!), and harlot.

When I started writing The Harlot’s Tale, I had no idea what I would call it. It was pretty clear that it would be Somebody’s Tale, but whose? I ran through a number of possibilities, most of which had the down-side of hinting at (or announcing!) the identity of the killer. I didn’t want to do this, because Rule #1 of Mystery Writing is: “Do not give away the identity of the killer in the title of your book.”

I ultimately settled on The Harlot’s Tale, both because I liked the Biblical feel of the word, and because the book is set in the aftermath of the Puritan capture of the city of York, when the godly were riding high. But as I did more research on prostitution in medieval and early modern England, names for individual prostitutes came to light, and it turns out that these individuals could be quite creative in establishing pseudonyms.

The first I discovered was "Spanish Jane," who – you will not be surprised to learn – was in no way Spanish. More alarming was "Claire Clatterbollocks." (If you are unfamiliar with the term ‘bollocks’ they are a rather coarse term for a man’s delicate bits.) Finally, there was a sex-worker whose given name was John Rykener, but worked under the name "Eleanor." The historical record is regrettably silent on the question of what John/Eleanor’s clients thought they were getting for their money! 

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Sam Thomas is the author of The Midwife Mysteries.  To win a copy of The Harlot’s Tale, leave a comment on this page, head over to his Facebook page, or send him an email. For more information on the history and mystery of midwifery, visit Sam’s website.

Brothels and Bawds in Shakespeare’s England: A guest post by Sam Thomas

Sam Thomas is visiting Reading the Past with two linked guest posts to celebrate the paperback release of The Harlot’s Tale, the second book in the Midwife Mysteries series. This essay covers brothels in Shakespearean England, and on Thursday, Sam will have a second post about the women who worked there.  As it happens, the first book in the series, The Midwife’s Tale (a book I very much enjoyed reading), is currently available as an e-book for $2.99 (see the author's website for some buying options). The Harlot's Tale is published in paperback today by Minotaur ($16.99, 336pp).

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Brothels and Bawds in Shakespeare’s England

Sam Thomas

When I began work on the second book in the Midwife Mysteries series, I needed a hook. It would be a mystery, it would feature Bridget Hodgson and her butt-kicking assistant Martha Hawkins, but what would it be about?

As the title indicates, The Harlot’s Tale focuses on sex and sin and is thus right up Bridget’s alley: When it comes to these subjects, who knows more than a midwife?

The next step in writing the book was to learn as much as I could about the business of prostitution in early modern England – and what a fascinating world it turned out to be! In a few days I’ll have a post about bawds over on English Historical Fiction Authors, and here I’d like to share what I learned about the brothels.

Despite their (deservedly!) seedy reputation, many English brothels had wealthy and respected owners behind the scenes. Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, Lord Hunsdon, owned several brothels, as did several well-known actors from the Elizabethan stage. This is not terribly surprising given the links between prostitution and the theatre; as we shall see, theatres and brothels lived cheek by jowl! More remarkable was that for centuries brothels outside London were under the control of the Bishop of Winchester. This was so well known that prostitutes became known as “Winchester geese.”

Many of London’s brothels were found not in the city itself, but across the Thames in the Southwark neighborhood. For centuries, Southwark operated as a sort of Las Vegas, satisfying Londoners’ less acceptable desires, and existing just beyond the reach of city officials. The south bank of the Thames features both brothels and theatres, cementing in many minds the connection between the two. Some brothels also doubled as alehouses, and one in Essex featured a common drinking vessel crafted to look like – er, there’s no good way to say this – a man’s sexual organs.

The question this raises is why brothels were tolerated at all. Other than rank hypocrisy, why would the Bishops of Winchester put their imprimatur on such a sinful business? It turns out that in the early modern world, brothels – and places like Southwark more broadly – were seen as necessary outlets for London’s sins.

Many commentators compared brothels to sewers and cesspools, but not in an entirely negative way. We may not like the smell of sewers, but they do us a service. In the same way, places like Southwark drew sins away from the city, and without them the city would become contaminated. They were, in short, a necessary evil.

The Harlot’s Tale is set in York rather than London, so I could not send Bridget off to Southwark – Spoiler alert: that will be in a later book! – but I did my best with the history I had at hand, and hope you will enjoy reading about it!

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Sam Thomas is the author of The Midwife Mysteries from Minotaur/St.Martin's. The third book in the series, The Witch Hunter’s Tale, will be released on January 6, 2015. For more on midwifery and childbirth, visit his website.

Dinner with Jane, Charlotte, and Will: A guest post by Syrie James

In today's guest post, Syrie James, a longtime fan of British literature and the author of many historical novels set in the 19th century, reflects on an imaginary dinner conversation with three of her favorite authors.  There's a Jane Austen-themed giveaway, too, open internationally to anyone who leaves a comment.  See details at the end.

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Dinner with Jane, Charlotte, and Will

By Syrie James

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and she asked me, totally out of the blue, “If you could dine with any three authors in history, who would you choose?” It isn’t the kind of question you expect to be asked while chatting about life and family and books in the courtyard of a really cute café over ahi tuna salads, and I promptly replied, “You mean I can only pick three? Out of all the literary greats in history? That’s harsh.” But I was game. I gave it a go.

“I guess I’d love to sit down for a bite and a chat with Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and William Shakespeare,” I told her. Now, this was a really good friend who had read (mostly) all of my books, so she didn’t have to ask “Why Jane and Charlotte?”—I mean, she knew. She knew how much I admire them both. She knew I’d studied them for years, have read everything they’ve ever written (including their juvenilia and poetry, which in Charlotte’s case is a lot), and have written novels about them from their points of view. She knew how excited I’d been to go to their homes in England, as well as many of the places they’d visited (and in Charlotte’s case, one of her schools.) So what my friend said (and this endeared me to her even more) was:

“Great choices. How awesome would it be if we had a time machine and could transport them all to your house for dinner tonight! If we did, what would you say to them?”

“Well, after I recovered from the shock of seeing them in person,” I said, “I’d thank them for the wonderful books and plays they wrote, which have so enriched my life and the lives of others. Then I’d fill them in on how incredibly popular and famous they’ve become over the past two hundred years. I’m sure they’d be astonished—and proud.”

“If you showed them the nearly endless variety of film versions of their novels and plays, it would blow their minds. And as for Jane and Charlotte, they’d love the books you’ve written about them—I mean, as them.”

“I hope so.” I went briefly quiet. “It was so important to me to get that right—to emulate Jane’s and Charlotte’s voices as closely as possible in my novels, and to honor their spirit, their courage, and their accomplishments. I hope they’d feel that I portrayed them accurately.”

“I’m sure they would,” my friend said, smiling.

“It’s so much fun to climb into their heads, view the world from their perspective, and bring them to life on the page,” I replied with enthusiasm. “But to see them in person! I have so many questions. I’d love to ask Jane about her mysterious seaside romance. I’d love to learn more about Edward Taylor, the remarkable young man who she adored in her youth, and who I wrote about in my new novel Jane Austen’s First Love.”

“What would you ask Charlotte Brontë?”

“Where do I start? I’d ask her about Mr. Nicholls, who loved her for eons before he had the nerve to propose. I’d love to chat about her brilliant sisters, Emily and Anne. It astonishes me that these three sisters who lived in the wilds of Yorkshire and didn’t have a single connection in the literary world, managed to get published at the same time, and wrote Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, two of the most beloved novels in the English language. That journey is what inspired me to write The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë.”

“One of my favorite books,” my friend said. Suddenly she added: “Wait, would it be a problem to put Jane and Charlotte in the same room together? Didn’t Charlotte make several unflattering remarks about Austen’s work?”

I laughed. “Yes, she did. She also said a few nice things, but nobody remembers that. Still, there’s a good chance that sparks would fly—like in the play I did.” (I’ve had the honor of playing Jane Austen in a theater piece written by Diana Birchall. You can watch a video highlights reel here.)

“But let’s not forget Shakespeare,” I added. “He would round out the conversation at this dinner table, and could mediate those sparks. Let’s face it: he was the greatest literary genius of all time.”

“Unless, of course, he didn’t actually write those plays himself,” my friend pointed out.

“I’d love to pick his brain and learn the truth, once and for all!” I replied, as I finished my iced tea. “What fun it would be to tell all three of these incredibly talented writers about their legacies. What a fascinating evening of conversation it would make. Just think: I’d get enough material to keep me busy writing books for a lifetime!”

Readers, what famous people from the past would you like to have dinner with, and why? 

 
BOOK DESCRIPTION:

In the summer of 1791, fifteen-year-old Miss Jane Austen is determined to accomplish three things: to do something useful, write something worthy, and fall madly in love. While visiting at Goodnestone Park in Kent for a month of festivities in honor of her brother's engagement to Miss Elizabeth Bridges, Jane meets the boy-next-door—the wealthy, worldly, and devilishly handsome Edward Taylor, heir to Bifrons Park, and hopefully her heart! Like many of Jane’s future heroes and heroines, she soon realizes that there are obstacles—social, financial, and otherwise—blocking her path to love and marriage, one of them personified by her beautiful and sweet tempered rival, Charlotte Payler.

Unsure of her own budding romance, but confident in her powers of observation, Jane distracts herself by attempting to maneuver the affections of three other young couples. But when her well-intentioned matchmaking efforts turn into blundering misalliance, Jane must choose between following her own happily-ever-after, or repairing those relationships which, based on erroneous first impressions, she has misaligned.

AUTHOR BIO:

Syrie James, hailed as “the queen of nineteenth century re-imaginings” by Los Angeles Magazine, is the bestselling author of nine critically acclaimed novels that have been translated into 18 languages. Her books have been awarded the Audio Book Association Audie, designated as Editor’s Picks by Library Journal, named a Discover Great New Writer’s Selection by Barnes and Noble, a Great Group Read by the Women’s National Book Association, and Best Book of the Year by The Romance Reviews and Suspense Magazine. Syrie is a member of the WGA and lives in Los Angeles. Please visit her at syriejames.com, Facebook or say hello on Twitter @SyrieJames.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Win One of Five Fabulous Jane Austen-inspired Prize Packages

To celebrate the holidays and the release of Jane Austen's First Love, Syrie is giving away five prize packages filled with an amazing selection of Jane Austen-inspired gifts and books! 

To enter the giveaway contest, simply leave a comment on any of the blog stops on the Jane Austen's First Love Holiday Blog Tour.

Increase your chances of winning by visiting multiple stops along the tour! Syrie's unique guest posts will be featured on a variety of subjects, along with fun interviews, spotlights, excerpts, and reviews of the novel. Contest closes at 11:59pm PT, December 21, 2014. Five lucky winners will be drawn at random from all of the comments on the tour, and announced on Syrie’s website on December 22, 2014. The giveaway contest is open to everyone, including international residents. Good luck to all!

The Downstairs Maid by Rosie Clarke, an early 20th-century romantic saga

The author’s biography says she “has penned over one hundred novels under different pseudonyms.” A little research reveals that Rosie Clarke is the newest pen name for novelist Linda Sole. Spanning 1907 through WWI, her latest is a comfortable read in the romantic saga mold.

Emily Carter is the much-loved daughter of a farmer and secondhand goods salesman living near the English market town of Ely. Though times are hard, she tries to remain upbeat but must contend with her resentful mother and lecherous uncle, a classic villain. Although the blurb promises a Downton Abbey-style experience, the plot goes beyond this description. A full third takes place before Emily goes into service at nearby Priorsfield Manor to pay for her sick father’s medical expenses. This provides a more complete picture of Emily as a person.

At a social event, Emily shares a dance with Nicolas Barton, the younger grandson of Lady Prior of Priorsfield, and makes a strong impression on him (and vice versa) despite her tawdry homemade dress and unfashionable boots. He continues to admire her even after she applies to work at his home. The novel realistically shows Emily’s adjustment to her place of employment – the ornate and old-fashioned décor, the women’s beautiful gowns, her amazement at the family’s rich meals – and her accompanying loss of independence. She makes friends there and moves up in status over time.

Included periodically are the viewpoints of the two Barton daughters: beautiful, snobbish Amy, who has more depth than first appears; and kindly Lizzie, who loves Austen’s novels as well as her sister’s beau. The action unfolds against a backdrop of changing social attitudes and the encroaching specter of war. Despite the author’s tendency to repeat facts and an overabundance of soap opera drama in the last 50 pages, this is an appealing story.

The Downstairs Maid was published by Ebury in 2014 (£5.99, paperback, 445pp).  This review first appeared in November's Historical Novels Review and is based on a personal purchase.

The May Bride by Suzannah Dunn, an uncommon Tudor wife novel

Suzannah Dunn’s latest novel is narrated by Jane Seymour, the unassuming maid of honor who became the third of Henry VIII’s six queens. That said, if you’re hoping to read a standard tale about political scheming and juicy scandals at the treacherous royal court, head elsewhere.

The May Bride is refreshingly unlike most fiction of the Tudor wife variety. It’s a quieter sort of tale, at least on the surface, and it moves along at a leisurely pace. (In an interview, the author said – maybe in jest, maybe not – that her biggest challenge in writing it was staying awake.)

Dunn knows what she’s doing, though. Her character-centered story is full of sharp yet subtle observations that keep readers alert to the shifting relationships among her characters – even when her young, innocent heroine doesn’t notice them herself.

As the eldest daughter among the eight living children of Sir John and Margery Seymour of Wolf Hall in Wiltshire, Jane is a sensible, introverted teenager who doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. The Seymours are of the gentry, with servants to help them out, but everyone gets involved in keeping the estate running. Jane’s days are spent in domestic pursuits: embroidery, laundry, mending her brothers’ torn clothes, gathering fruit for jam, making pastry in the kitchen. One highlight for the Seymours is their twice-yearly trek to the fair at Great Bedwyn.

The novel offers many scenes showing these aspects of country life, and the details are fascinating. In fact, you’ll find it easy to forget all about Jane’s illustrious marriage, still years in the future, because it seems so unlikely.

Although everything is seen through Jane’s eyes, the plot’s focus is actually Katherine Filliol, her older brother Edward’s golden bride, a local heiress who makes her entrance while “fresh as a daisy in her buttercup silk.” Katherine’s cheery, casually lighthearted ways enchant her in-laws, Jane in particular, and they become good friends at first. As time passes, it becomes clear that Edward and his wife are horribly mismatched. His accusation, several years into their union, that she was unfaithful to him with his father shocks them all.

This is the same incident that runs through the background of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, of course, but here it’s explored in depth. In imagining the lead-up to this rumored episode, The May Bride tells an affecting story about the sidelining of women and a family torn apart in the aftermath of a dreadful mistake. And finally, although the final segments set at court feel a bit muddled with their multiple time-shifts, it provides a believable context for Jane Seymour’s unanticipated rise in status.

The May Bride was published in November by Pegasus ($25.95, hardcover, 308pp). The UK publisher is Little, Brown. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy.

The Public Gaze: A guest post by S.K. Rizzolo, author of Die I Will Not

Today S.K. Rizzolo is here with an entertaining post about political scandals, early 19th-century style.  Die I Will Not, third in her Regency mystery series, was published in November by Poisoned Pen Press (279pp, $14.95 pb/$24.95 hb).

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The Public Gaze
S.K. Rizzolo

Nowadays we are all too familiar with living under the public gaze, but this phenomenon is not new. Set in 1813 London, my novel Die I Will Not explores royal scandal, early 19th-century journalism, and dirty politics. As I researched these topics, I became fascinated by the idea of individuals struggling to preserve their privacy under the ubiquitous modern gaze—a gaze feeding voracious scandals that often refuse to die. Perhaps in our own era of 24-hour news cycles trumpeting the latest brouhaha, readers can relate.

I learned that “spin” is by no means a modern concept. It was common in Regency England to insert a “squib,” a short, satirical paragraph, in the papers to lampoon one’s enemies, or one could purchase a “puff,” extravagant praise designed to polish up one’s image. The royals were not immune from this scramble for positive press. Indeed, the Prince Regent (later George IV), who was very sensitive to public perception, often sent his secretary Colonel McMahon to the newspapers to bribe or browbeat the editors into withholding or publishing information.

No one experienced the glare of scrutiny more relentlessly than the unpopular Regent and his detested wife Caroline. Both sought to manage their reputations in “the public mind,” and I would argue that both ultimately failed, though, as we shall see, Caroline scored some notable triumphs over her husband. My character Penelope Wolfe also struggles with scandal and a tarnished reputation, at one point waking “to find herself notorious.” Penelope is the daughter of a radical philosopher suspected of treason and murder. She is also the target of sly innuendos about her rocky marriage to a spendthrift artist as well as her relationships to my other sleuths, barrister Edward Buckler and Bow Street Runner John Chase. I found it interesting to parallel her experiences to Caroline’s: two women, two “injured mothers” attacked in the press for a presumed loss of virtue.

In Caroline’s case, the Prince had instituted an inquiry into her conduct, which came to be known as the “Delicate Investigation.” Well, it’s hard to imagine anything less “delicate” because the agents were busy interviewing her reputed lovers and accusing Caroline of having borne an illegitimate child. The investigators even grilled the poor woman’s laundry maid and other servants to find out what she’d been up to. But in the end the Regent’s attempt to divorce his wife had failed when she was cleared of the primary charge. Her defender Spencer Perceval summed up what may have been the general view at the time: “I believe the princess to be playful, and incautiously witty, in her deportment; but I prefer that to secret intrigue and infamous practices." In other words, she had become the sympathetic victim of her royal husband’s scheming. One hack writer even made her the heroine of a Gothic romance.

This Cruikshank caricature depicts George and Caroline as the plump green bags that contained the evidence collected against Caroline in preparation for her trial in the House of Lords.   As the caption aptly puts it, “Ah! sure such a pair was never seen so justly form’d to meet by nature.”  One notices, however, that George is rather more rotund than Caroline.

So the nasty scandal that erupted in the spring of 1813 was only the latest salvo in a long-running war between Caroline and George—but this time she fired the first shot. Despite having earned a somewhat qualified verdict of innocence in the Delicate Investigation of 1806, Caroline’s contact with her daughter Charlotte, heiress to the throne, continued to be restricted. In response, Caroline wrote the Regent a letter, and when he declined to read it, she sent this letter to the newspapers, sparking a national uproar. The “Regent’s Valentine,” published on February 10, 1813, masqueraded as an appeal to her husband’s better nature but was actually a wily move on Caroline’s part to drum up public support. By the way, Henry Brougham, the opposition lawyer and politician, was said to have composed this letter for Caroline—for, of course, the Regent’s political enemies, Whigs and radicals alike, were all too eager to make use of his domestic discord for their own purposes. Excerpts from the letter were even printed on commemorative china!

When the furor finally subsided, Caroline was the undisputed victor in the publicity battle, the Times having declared her “complete innocence” and the Lord Mayor having organized a proclamation and procession in her honor (according to one source, “the Prince Regent, foaming with impotent rage, found it convenient to go out of town that day”). Amid rumors that he had been planning to revive the Delicate Investigation in yet another vindictive attack on his wife, he essentially slunk away in shame. But by 1814 Caroline had left England for the Continent, where she shocked Europe by frolicking with her Italian servant Bartolomeo Pergami, before returning to England in 1820 to face divorce proceedings in the House of Lords. She beat her husband this time too. After passing the Lords, the divorce bill was abandoned because of the enormous public outcry in her favor. Sadly, Caroline died a few weeks later after trying and failing to storm Westminster Abbey in order to join her husband’s coronation.

And what has been history’s verdict? Dr. Steven Parissien titles his article for the BBC “George IV: A Royal Joke” and quotes from an obituary, which states, “At an age when generous feelings are usually predominant, we find him absorbed by an all-engrossing selfishness, not merely careless of the feelings of others but indulging in wanton cruelty.” Though George is often acknowledged as a patron of the arts, his poor reputation has refused to die, echoing down the centuries, labeling him bloated, dissolute, profligate, and ungrateful. How’s that for an image problem? And though I think that Caroline has fared better under the public gaze, probably because she figures as a persecuted woman, she too has image problems. With some justice, she is often said to have been vulgar, smelly, and promiscuous. I’ve often wondered why anyone could wish for immortality when so often one is left with mud all over one’s face. I wonder too how many of our own 21st-century scandals will live on to become the subject of historical novels.

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S.K. Rizzolo is a longtime Anglophile and history enthusiast. An English teacher, Rizzolo has earned an M.A. in literature. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. Set in Regency England, The Rose in the Wheel, Blood for Blood, and Die I Will Not are the three titles in Rizzolo’s series about a Bow Street Runner, an unconventional lady, and a melancholic barrister.

About Die I Will Not: Unhappy wife and young mother Penelope Wolfe fears scandal for her family and worse. A Tory newspaper editor has been stabbed while writing a reply to the latest round of letters penned by the firebrand Collatinus. Twenty years before, her father, the radical Eustace Sandford, also wrote as Collatinus before he fled London just ahead of accusations of treason and murder—a mysterious beauty closely connected to Sandford and known only as N.D. had been brutally slain. Now the seditious new Collatinus letters that attack the Prince Regent in the press seek to avenge N.D.’s death and unmask her murderer. What did the dead editor know that provoked his death? Her artist husband Jeremy being no reliable ally, Penelope turns anew to lawyer Edward Buckler and Bow Street Runner John Chase. As she battles public notoriety, Buckler and Chase put their careers at risk to stand behind her and find N.D.’s killer. They pursue various lines of inquiry including a missing memoir, Royal scandal, and the dead editor’s secretive, reclusive wife. As they navigate the dark underbelly of 1813 London among a cast driven by dirty politics and dark passions, as well as by decency and a desire for justice, past secrets and present criminals are exposed, upending Penelope’s life and the lives of others.