1–What’s the name of your latest release?  THE NIGHT PORTRAIT: A Novel of WWII & da Vinci’s Italy 2–What is it about?  THE NIGHT PORTRAIT is a dual-timeline historical novel about the creation of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings, Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine, and the woman who fought to save it from Nazi destruction during World War II. It’s a story of two women of art, two men of war, one painting, and one obsession.  3–What word best describes your main character(s)?  Determined. Brave! 4–What makes your story relatable?  I wanted THE NIGHT PORTRAIT pinned squarely on the historical record, but my goal was also to bring these two very different eras to life. I want readers to ask themselves what they might do in similar situations. The four different narrators deal with challenges that sometimes seem insurmountable. I believe historical fiction allows us to relate emotionally to the larger human experience. Following a protagonist’s story makes us ask what we would do, facing such challenges. An immersive historical tale allows us to understand how we are connected to the long threads of history. 5–Who are the people your main characters turn to when…

He wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt with leather flip-flops. His longish, snow-white hair framed a deeply tanned face and the most startling eyes Keely had ever seen. In fact, they were the first thing she’d noticed after being placed in the cell. The old man’s eyes were blue, but it was a lighter–no, a brighter–shade of blue than she had ever seen. It was as if his eyes had been encased in crystal. There was a clarity to them Keely was unable to define. She had heard of eyes that sparkled, but always considered that specific description a way of referring to excitement reflected in a person’s face. But this old man? His eyes really did sparkle. He had already been in the cell when Keely was locked in during the early morning hours. When the door had shut behind her, the officer quickly departed. Keely simply stood by the door with tears streaming down her face. She had been angry, afraid, and drunk. Now, her head pounded ferociously, but she was beginning to recall those first moments in the cell. The old man had stood when she walked in, Keely remembered. And he had said something. What…

1–What’s the name of your latest release?  The Royal Governess 2–What is it about?  The childhood of Queen Elizabeth II. In particular Marion Crawford, the unknown young Scottish teacher who helped make her the monarch she is today. 3–What word best describes your main character(s)?  Contradictory! Marion Crawford never intended to work for royalty. She wanted to work with children right at the other end of the social scale; in the slums of Edinburgh. She wanted to make a difference and help close the gap between the haves and have nots. Then a chance meeting with the Duchess of York, mother of Princess Elizabeth (now the Queen) changed her life forever. She was a royal governess for nearly twenty years, but her story ended very sadly. After a perceived betrayal, the royal family cut her off forever. 4–What makes your story relatable?  It shows the Queen as a vulnerable human being. She can come across as controlled and formal, but The Royal Governess reveals her as a loving and sensitive child. The warm and close relationship between her and Marion is the heart of the book. The two of them show a familiar period of British history from the entirely…

Research for writing a novel is like opening a message in a bottle. Of course, all the material isn’t nicely folded up containing everything you wish to know about the subject, but each new piece is a surprise nugget adding to the richness of your story. I became interested in writing about Edgar Degas after I bought a travel guide to New Orleans as I was considering re-visiting the city. I had attended college there and had only returned once in the intervening years. I needed to know about places to stay and which favorite places were still around. I’d no idea while I was in college that Degas had spent five months visiting his Creole relatives there in 1872-73, and I was intrigued by the discovery. From there I began my research. Much has been written about Degas the artist and some historical novels have been written about his life, but I couldn’t find any that related to his time in New Orleans when he was thirty-eight and not yet famous. So I had the good start for a story: you need a protagonist or main character who’s in trouble, someone who wants something badly. With historical fiction writer’s…

I’m delighted and grateful Fresh Fiction is offering me this opportunity to share a part of my historical fiction. Thank you. Dorothea Hubble Bonneau Excerpt from Once in a Blood Moon: The house has settled for night. Alexandra stuffs her pillows under her blankets to make it look like she’s sleeping in her bed and steps out onto her balcony, deter­mined sneak down to the village and beg Papa to help save her violin teacher, the man she loves. When she dangles her feet over the edge of her bed, an Ahoelra, one of those discontented African ghosts with mischief on its mind, slips into her head. You don’t have the courage to do this thing, the Ahoelra whispers. “I do have the courage.” Taking a deep breath, she touches her toes to the floor, warm and damp under her bare feet, like a living thing that has caught a fever. Pulling her black cloak over her dress, more for camouflage than warmth, she slips into her riding boots and steps out onto the balcony. Taking hold of the dew-slick railing, she feels her way to the back landing, grateful when she sees the porch lantern is still lit. She…

As the hot breath of August inspires us to escape the heat with cold drinks, swimming pools, and air-conditioned spaces (alone or properly socially-distanced, of course) we’ll look at escapes into fascinating views of nineteenth-century life. Two of these visions focus on the California coast.  In CALICO PALACE by Gwen Bristow, two women from vastly different backgrounds arrive in California on the eve of the 1849 Gold Rush.  Kendra’s army colonel stepfather brings the family to San Francisco as commander of the city’s defenses during the Mexican War.  Marny travels from Honolulu to set up a gaming establishment.  Both end up following the gold craze into the mining camp of Shiny Gulch, where they set up the Calico Palace, a tent that evolves over time to become the most elegant gambling house in California. Rich in detail about the rapid rise of a sleepy town into a major economic powerhouse, Bristow’s tale illuminates the stories of miners and settlers, gamblers, and drifters, those dreaming of fortunes built on gold dust, and those ready to profit from those dreams. In BELLE CORA by Phillip Margulis, small-town New York girl Arabella Godwin grows up to become a woman so infamous, relatives back…

I am a tenth-generation Texan, but London has held a place in my heart for over ten years. You see, I have a son who has lived there for more than a decade. Thanks to him and his family of three–my granddaughter was born there on New Year’s Eve 2019–the city will always be special to me. There is absolutely nothing like walking those streets with a thousand years of history close enough to touch. It was on a walk with my son through this great city that the stories of nineteenth-century London came alive. With fog shrouding the rooftops of buildings that were hundreds of years old and our footsteps echoing on the cobblestones, I could imagine a time when lack of electricity and CCTV would make this place less than charming on a dark night. Less than safe. What reminded me of my favorite childhood movie, Mary Poppins, quickly became more reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. And then a story was born. Only I just had half the story. The other half came to me several years later when I stumbled across an article in Texas Monthly magazine about a serial killer who rampaged through Austin, Texas in…

1–What’s the name of your latest release?  Murder in the East End (Below Stairs Mysteries Book 4) 2–What is it about?  Kat Holloway, a cook in a Mount Street mansion in Victorian London is asked to look into the disappearance of a nurse from the Foundling Hospital. Distressed for the woman, and intrigued, because the request comes from the foster brother of Daniel McAdam, a man she’s falling for, Kat can’t refuse. 3–What word best describes your main character(s)?  Tenacious 4–What makes your story relatable? The character of Kat. She’s an ordinary person, not an aristocrat or wealthy dilettante. She works very hard, is good at what she does, and knows exactly who she is. 5–Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help?  Kat turns to Daniel McAdam, who is a man-of-all-work who sometimes masquerades as an upper-class gentleman in order to assist the police. She also relies on Lady Cynthia, who prefers men’s clothing to women’s more restrictive ones, and Mr. Thanos, a genius mathematician who is smitten with Cynthia. Kat’s kitchen assistant, Tess, and Daniel’s son, James, round out the irregulars. 6–What do you love about the setting of your book?  The Victorian…

Thanks so much for the opportunity to talk about my latest Lady Adelaide Mystery, Just Make Believe! This 1920s-set cozy-with-a-touch-of-paranormal features Addie, an aristocratic widow, the pesky ghost of her cheating husband Rupert, and Dev, a divine Scotland Yard detective. Not the usual love triangle for sure, LOL. Rupert is stuck in Limbo after a very rakish life, and unless he protects and assists Addie, he’ll never get to Heaven and redemption. The series has been the most fun for me in my over-twenty years’ book career, and I hope readers are equally amused! In Just make Believe, Addie’s been invited to a week-long house party, but how can she have fun when bodies are piling up everywhere? Rupert and Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter to the rescue! Here’s the blurb: A week-long house party in the country–why not? Lady Adelaide has nothing else to do, now that her year of mourning for her unfaithful husband is up and her plans to rekindle her romantic life have backfired. But when her hostess is found dead on the conservatory floor, Addie knows just who to call Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter of Scotland Yard. Dev may not want to kiss Addie again, but…

For the month of Bastille Day, I’m serving up a selection of historical fiction that captures the time just before, during, and after the Revolution. Caught in the merciless cogs of this seismic shift are four very different women, some who will thrive–and one who will pay the ultimate price for being on the wrong side of history. Beginning first with the one who loses the most, we have ABUNDANCE by Sena Jeter Naslund. Much like Sophia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette, Naslund’s book looks at Marie’s life through her own eyes. Beginning as a giddy 14-year old thrilled to be going to France to marry the 15-year-old Dauphin, completely unprepared for the vicious cauldron of political intrigue that is Versailles, Marie is dazzled by the court, who seemed charmed by her. But although she works hard to build a relationship with her husband, his failure to consummate the marriage and give France the heir it needs sours her life at court. She buries her disappointment by retreating in opulent comfort, surrounding herself with a small coterie of women friends, the Austrian ambassador–the Swedish Count Von Fersen. By the time the long-awaited children arrive, France is in desperate circumstances, with bitter…