Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Michael Kenneth Smith | 20 Questions: ALL IS FAIR
Author Guest / November 11, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? ALL IS FAIR 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Jan Orlinsky, a fighter pilot in training and pianist at large, watches as his home country, Poland, is devastated by the German blitzkrieg in 1939. Anxious to do his part in The Great War, Jan makes his way to England where, during a particularly heavy day of combat, he crashes into the English Channel and is captured by the Germans. Driven by his desire to return to his first love, newspaper reporter Sophie Gordon, Jan escapes from his captors and makes his way back to England via Spain, where he is again captured and imprisoned, this time for the duration of the war. Once free of bondage, Jan learns he has been betrayed in ways that will forever change his life. Feeling lost he finds his way to Paris to start life anew and finds his future is not at all like he envisioned. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The location was determined by historic events. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Of course, I always create main characters who…

Dora Levy Mossanen | 20 Questions: LOVE AND WAR IN THE JEWISH QUARTER
Author Guest / November 8, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? LOVE AND WAR IN THE JEWISH QUARTER   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Against the backdrop of military conflict, political tumult, and oppression, Love and War in the Jewish Quarter unfolds a tender and tension-packed story of forbidden love between Soleiman, who should be looking for a Jewish wife to raise his daughter, and Velvet, the Muslim wife of the ruthless Governor General, the most powerful man in the country.  How it all ends is both heartbreaking and hopeful.   3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, my grandfather, over a cup of rose petal tea, recounted an incident in his past, which continued to brew in my head for many years.  He had been Reza Shah’s dentist, my grandfather told me, during a time of tumult in Iran, a time of change and many difficulties for the Jewish community. Yet, my grandfather was chosen to take care of the opium-ravaged teeth of the king. But there was a major problem. My grandfather was Jewish. And Jews were believed to be najes, or impure….

Alix Rickloff | 20 Questions: THE GIRLS IN NAVY BLUE
Author Guest / November 1, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE GIRLS IN NAVY BLUE 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? THE GIRLS IN NAVY BLUE is a dual timeline novel, moving between the WWI-era lives of three women who join the Navy as “yeomanettes” and 1968 when a young divorcee begins to uncover the secrets they kept for fifty years. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? Norfolk VA was the perfect setting for this book; not only was it a center of naval activities during WWI with over 1000 yeomanettes stationed there, but it’s an area and a landscape I know well having grown up on the Chesapeake Bay. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Probably not. My characters live far more interesting lives than I do. I’d probably be too boring for the likes of them. 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Viv is determined, loyal, and, in the end, courageous. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Everything I learned about the yeomanettes and their service was new to me. I had never heard of these women before which is tragic considering the amazing contributions they made…

Julia Justiss | LESSER-KNOWN LADIES
Author Spotlight / October 19, 2022

October, the time of witches, spooks, and people dressed up as something/one else provides a great backdrop to this month’s selections of books about ladies who existed in the shadow of more famous husbands or siblings.  Overlooked?  Underappreciated?  Have a read and decide! We begin with LANDSCAPE OF A MARRIAGE by Gail Ward Olmsted.  When Mary Olmsted’s husband dies, leaving her a young widow with three children, she agrees to a marriage of convenience with her late husband’s brother he had urged her to consider before his death. But Mary wants more than security: she wants to win her new husband’s love and share in his work.  Frederick Law Olmsted dreams of creating a green space in the center of every city.  Beginning with Central Park in New York City, Frederick spends the next forty years designing parks for cities, private estates, and the nation, a loving Mary at his side.  Though remaining in a traditional wife’s role, Mary’s organizational skills and business acumen provide essential, if unsung, support for his career.  Their personal journey, highlighted by the momentous events that shaped the nineteenth century, illumines her husband’s dream of a country filled with public landscapes that embrace a “beating…

Lecia Cornwall | 20 Questions: THAT SUMMER IN BERLIN
Author Guest / October 12, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? THAT SUMMER IN BERLIN 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Viviane Alden is a young Englishwoman who gets an unexpected invitation to visit Germany for the dazzling Berlin Olympics in the summer of 1936, but all is not as peaceful as it seems. Behind the scenes, the Nazis are already secretly preparing for another war. Paired with a handsome British Reporter, Viviane is asked to use her skills as a photographer to look past the spectacle of the games and find evidence of what’s really going on in Germany. If she succeeds, her photos could possibly prevent another war, but the Nazis will stop at nothing to protect their secrets, and if Viviane is caught, the consequences will be deadly. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? Berlin was the world’s most exotic, cosmopolitan, and quirky city between the wars, and it became the most tragic and terrifying place under Nazi rule. When I read that the British upper classes routinely sent their young debutantes to Germany for a bit of continental polish and the possibility of marrying into the German aristocracy, I was intrigued…

Kim Taylor Blakemore | 20 Questions: THE DECEPTION
Author Guest / September 28, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE DECEPTION 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Maud Price, a once-famous medium, finds her spirit guide missing and her reputation on the verge of ruin. At the urging of a colleague, she requests the help of Clementine Watkins – known for her discretion and skills in conjuring the dead. Maud’s comeback rests on those skills. But can she stomach the theatrics – and whispers of murder – that come with it? 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I set the book in the fictional town of Harrowboro, New Hampshire, where I also set THE COMPANION and AFTER ALICE FELL. Each book is set in a different decade: 1855, 1865 and now, 1877, so it’s fun to add on additional elements and modernities as the town grows. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? I am enamored with Clementine and her cleverness. She would be quite fun to hang out with. Until she wasn’t. 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Maud Price: good-hearted, gifted medium, trusting. Clementine Watkins: ambitious, clever, dangerous. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book?…

Suzanne Moyers | 20 Questions: TIL ALL THESE THINGS BE DONE
Author Guest / September 21, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release?  ‘TIL ALL THESE THINGS BE DONE.  I got the idea from a haunting Irish ballad, The Turtle Dove, filled with longing for lost love and promises to return. It’s a song my protagonist’s missing father sang to her as a child. 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? When her beloved father vanishes, sixteen-year-old Leola Rideout has little time to question why. With the “great influenza” epidemic in its second year and social turmoil raging across Texas, it’s all she can do to keep her young sisters–and dreams–alive. Only when Papa returns in haunting visions, decades later does Leola finally confront this loss, leading to a remarkable family discovery that might contain the seeds of forgiveness. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The book is loosely based on a family mystery that began in rural Texas a century ago.  North and east Texas was then known as “the Blacklands” because the dark, fertile soil made it ideal for growing crops like cotton. The late 1910s and early ‘20s were a pivotal moment for that region (as for the world) and, in doing my research, I…

Karen Robards | 20 Questions: THE GIRL FROM GUERNICA 
Author Guest / September 7, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE GIRL FROM GUERNICA   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? On an April day in 1937, the sky opens and fire rains down upon the small Spanish town of Guernica. Seventeen-year-old Sibi and her family are caught up in the horror. Griff, an American military attache, pulls Sibi from the wreckage, and they form a bond over shared tragedies. When Germany claims no involvement in the attack, insisting the Spanish Republic was responsible, Sibi is forced to lie to Nazi officials. If she or her sisters reveal that they saw planes bearing swastikas, the gestapo will silence them—by any means necessary.   As war begins to rage across Europe, Sibi finds herself in Berlin and joins the underground resistance, secretly exchanging information with Griff. But as the scope of Germany’s ambitions becomes clear, maintaining the facade of a Nazi sympathizer becomes ever more difficult. And as Sibi is drawn deeper into a web of secrets, she must find a way to outwit an enemy that threatens to decimate her family once and for all.   3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The Nazis’…

Gill Paul | 20 Questions: THE MANHATTAN GIRLS
Author Guest / August 17, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE MANHATTAN GIRLS 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Sex in the City set in the 1920s, as Dorothy Parker and three friends navigate life, love and careers in a city of jazz clubs, speakeasies and badly behaved men 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I write about real women in history and had long wanted to make Dorothy Parker a subject, especially covering the early, very vulnerable period in her life. I had also always wanted to write about Prohibition-era Manhattan, so the two came together. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Definitely! Dorothy was the wittiest woman in the world ever. I’d love to go out on the town with her, drinking hooch, gossiping, and sharing secrets. She was notoriously indiscreet but so funny I’d forgive her anything. 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Genius, chaotic, fragile. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Just how corrupt Prohibition was. Banning law-abiding citizens from buying alcohol turned them into white-collar criminals. Many crime bosses made their fortunes through bootlegging in the 1920s, and they offered protection…

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles | 20 Questions: THE AFFAIRS OF ASHMORE CASTLE
Author Guest / August 12, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE AFFAIRS OF ASHMORE CASTLE 2– What is it about? It is the second volume in a family saga set in Edwardian England, concerning the lives, loves, and tribulations of the reluctant new Earl of Stainton and his family, servants, neighbors, and friends. Fans of Downton Abbey will probably feel at home at Ashmore Castle. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? There is a big house up on a hill overlooking a delightful old village that I often visit. I always wondered what it would be like to live there, so when I was asked to write this series, it seemed a good way to satisfy the itch! 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? There are two heroines, old school friends, and very different from each other, but I love them both. 5—How do you describe your hero? There’s no one hero, but many male characters, all different, from the delicious, earthy blacksmith to the reserved, aesthetic earl. And with a series, there are always new people coming in. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Number plates on cars were…