Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Heidi Chiavaroli | Author-Reader Match: THE TEA CHEST
Author Guest / February 5, 2020

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-ReaderMatch” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Heidi Chiavaroli! Writes: Dual timeline women’s fiction. My latest release, The Tea Chest, hit stores yesterday, February 4! About: Thirty-something women’s fiction author seeks readers for entertaining and emotional novel with a brave but conflicted historical heroine who must choose between her Loyalist family’s wishes and her true love, a Patriot. After the Boston Tea Party, a mysterious chest becomes part of her legacy—a legacy that will change the future of a present-day woman who seeks to do what no woman has done before. What I’m Looking For In My Ideal Reader Match: Their idea of a perfect date is a trip to the local bookstore followed by dinner and a movie—maybe a compelling romantic drama. Loves history and loves imagining the people who actually lived in the past and formed our country. Likes reading both contemporary and historical stories and considers it a bonus when they are included in one novel with a satisfying connection. Loves heroes who are caring and passionate…

Julia Justiss | History ReFreshed: Into the Sunset with Westerns
Author Guest / September 18, 2019

With summer already headed into the sunset in most locales, we’ll take a look at fiction set in the most famous of “into the sunset” areas–American-set and Western novels.  After decades of tremendous popularity, with the exception of a few movies and books–the “Lonesome Dove” series and remakes of “True Grit”–the genre has been out of favor recently.  But a few new and notable novels would like to reverse that trend. Proceeding chronologically, we begin with 355: THE WOMEN OF WASHINGTON’S SPY RING by Kit Sergeant.  Following the lead of the popular AMC TV show “Turn,” Sergeant presents the intertwining stories of three women who might have belonged to the secret spy ring referred to in Washington’s notebooks.  Meg Moncrieffe returned from boarding school in Ireland to find a colony in revolt.  Though her sympathies were initially with the British, her love for Aaron Burr persuaded her to look at another solution.  Elizabeth Burgin’s loyalties lay strongly with the colonists’ side after her husband died aboard one of the notorious British prison ships.  When a Culper Ring member approaches her, she’s ready to put herself–and her family–at risk to bring down the men who caused her husband’s death.  Initially furious…

Stephanie Marie Thornton | Top 10 Rules Alice Roosevelt Broke with Gusto
Author Guest / March 22, 2019

Hello, all, Stephanie Marie Thornton here! My latest historical novel, AMERICAN PRINCESS, reimagines the 96-year life of Alice Roosevelt, eldest daughter of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and owner of the famous needlepoint pillow that proclaimed, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” Obviously, Alice Roosevelt didn’t mind breaking a rule or two. In fact, she rather reveled in shattering every rule she ever encountered! Here’s a list of the Top 10 Rules Alice Roosevelt Broke with Gusto… Rather than calling cards or lace fans, Alice was renowned for carrying in her silk purse a little garter snake named Emily Spinach. (She named her pet Emily for an aunt, Spinach for the snake’s green color.) Sometimes Alice let the snake slither free during state dinners at the White House, which certainly caused a ruckus! Alice sometimes received a dressing down from her parents for her lack of manners and decorum, including when she refused to remove her gloves to eat asparagus at dinner parties and also after she hunted down serving trays to help her younger siblings slide down the stairs of the White House. In a time when Edwardian young ladies were expected to…