1–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? FREEDOM’S GHOST invites the reader into the revolution of the human spirit that took place during the years before the Revolutionary War.   2–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The Bone Rattler series tracks events that led to the war for independence from Britain, so that premise determines the settings. The year is 1770, and a catalyst for the plot is the Boston Massacre, which occurred at a very specific location and time. The overall action takes place in the most active venues of rebellious fever, the Massachusetts and New York colonies.   3–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? After seven books in the series, my protagonist Duncan McCallum is already a very compatible companion—he shares my love of nature, science and good Scotch whisky. Duncan sometimes visits my dreams.   4–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Resourceful, stealthy, defiant.   5–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I was astonished to discover that there was, and still is, a great mystery about the events that directly precipitated the Boston Massacre. The tension between troops and colonists was obvious,…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present J’nell Ciesielski!   Writes: Historical fiction? Check! Hefty doses of romance? Double check! Dashes of action and adventure? You bet! Happily ever after? Always! My two favorite things to do when telling a story is choosing a little-known bit of historical trivia and asking the question “what if?”. Even better if I get to combine them in the same story. My latest release, TO FREE THE STARS, is the second part in the Jack and Ivy duology and asks the question “what if the Winter Soldier fell in love?” You see, I was watching Captain America one too many times and suddenly I had to find out what happens if a brain-washed assassin falls in love. In the first book, THE BRILLIANCE OF STARS, we see Jack and Ivy falling in love, but it’s book two where their relationship is pushed to the limit and there are more questions to explore. How does a relationship survive when the person you married is no longer…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Valerie Fraser Luesse!   Writes: Hello, there! I’m excited for the opportunity to introduce myself. I love tapping into my years as a travel writer for Southern Living magazine to really take readers deep into a Southern setting, whether that’s rural Alabama, a remote Louisiana bayou town, or a long, rambling coastal highway to Key West. I want you to forget where you are and travel with me into the fictional worlds of my characters, which are always rooted in the real South, a place I know and love and find endlessly fascinating. My latest novel, Letters from My Sister (Revell, August 2023) turns back the clock to the early 20th century. Sisters Emmy and Callie Bullock are living a privileged life as the only daughters of a wealthy Alabama cotton farmer when their well-ordered household gets turned upside down by the arrival of Lily McGee, granddaughter of the Bullocks’ trusted housekeeper. Arrestingly beautiful, Lily quickly – and innocently – draws the wrong kind…

Who doesn’t love an old castle, rife with secrets and lore and mystery? Of course, most readers tend to imagine Scotland or England when incorporating a good castle, but what about Midwestern Wisconsin? Believe it or not, Wisconsin boasts a castle or two, and they’re not necessarily White Castle, the home of the hamburger sliders. It was with this (the castle, not the hamburgers) that I decided to write a dual-time Gothic mystery surrounding a castle, vanishing women over decades, with heroines who are determined to find the lost and save their tragedies from being unremembered. Of course, taking inspiration from history is always a must and therefore as the author I entered the realm of study, focusing on one of the worst female serial killers known to humankind. Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian countess, is most widely known as the woman whose fascination with the torture and bloodletting of young women took the lives of possibly hundreds in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. With this purported fascination, reports funneled in of not only the disappearance of local girls in the surrounding areas but also of women from the more notable families. This inspired an investigation that landed Elizabeth in…

The position of governesses within the 19th century and the surrounding years just fascinates me. The governess was, in a way, a liminal person – neither one of the servants nor one of the masters, a paid employee but also a lady. She wasn’t one of the family, but she knew things about the family. That’s why I love a governess novel, in both classics and historical fiction. That’s why my debut novel, THE SECRETS OF HARTWOOD HALL, is about a governess.   So, here are a few fascinating governesses from literature. These are all great creations, so instead of ranking them as characters, I’m going to rank them as governesses – by how good they are at teaching their pupils!   10. Madame de la Rougierre from Uncle Silas, J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1864) Madame de la Rougierre is probably the most evil fictional governess I’ve come across. She is a perfect gothic creation, depicted almost as a fairy tale witch – she literally cackles the first time she appears. She terrifies her teenaged pupil Maud, our protagonist, making up ghost stories to scare her, then starting to plot far worse.   9. Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, William…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE LOST MELODY 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant enters an asylum looking for a patient they claim is not there—and finds unexpected music in a hopeless place. The origins of music therapy combined with Victorian asylums and mental health. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I had a dream once that I woke in a strange stone house of sorts, with no memory of how I’d gotten there, or why they wouldn’t let me leave. The heroine’s journey is not quite the same, but that dream spurred me into researching asylums in Victorian England! 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Absolutely! We’d play piano duets and talk music! 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Musical, compassionate, determined 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Even trapped in awful circumstances, freedom does exist. There’s only so much about a person you can actually lock up. 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I edit more than I write, I think. Every few pages, I go back over…

When I first heard about your book THE MISSING GIRLS OF ALARDYCE HOUSE, I was intrigued because it sounded like the kind of historical gothic mystery I adore. What inspired you to write this book, and why a trilogy?  Does each book pick up where the previous one left off? Does each book focus on the same characters? Is each book told from the same character’s perspective? I was inspired to write this series by a clip from Downton Abbey. I’d never actually watched the program before, but I saw a snippet of it on Harry Hill’s TV Burp of all things. It was a scene where the family were gathered around the table for dinner and I saw the character Thomas, played by the lovely Rob James Collier. This inspired the character of Matthew. He sprung to life in my mind very vividly and quickly. I wrote the first book in just three weeks and that was handwritten in a notebook, not even on a laptop. The book just poured out of me so quickly my hand could barely keep up with my brain. It was the most intense writing experience I’ve ever had. Each book in the series…

University of Munich Munich, Germany March 28, 1938 After the professor departed, Peter Lang checked his watch. The reporter would arrive in three minutes if she were the punctual sort. He closed his logbook and filed it away. His friend George Norwood, bureau chief for the American News Service in Berlin, had called to say he’d given Peter’s number to a firebrand female reporter who didn’t know her place. George was heaping on assignments to keep her out of trouble. “Good luck.” Peter closed his file drawer. By definition, troublemakers made trouble. “Entschuldigung?” A slender brunette knocked on his open door. Not a pretty woman, but . . . arresting. “Professor Peter Lang?” “Just Mr. Lang until I receive my doctorate,” Peter said in English, and he strode over. She had a firm handshake born of working in a man’s profession, no doubt. “You must be Miss Firebrand.” Medium-brown eyes looked up at him, lit by intelligence and humor. “My reputation precedes me.” What had he said? “Pardon?” “My name is Evelyn Brand, not Firebrand, despite what Mr. Norwood says.” For heaven’s sake. “My apologies, Miss Brand. I assure you, the mistake was mine, not George’s.” “No need to apologize.” The pleasure…