Something about the richness and vibrant color of the brocade gowns of the Italian Renaissance calls up to me the decorations of the winter season—bright golds, reds, purples and candlelight glowing against the dark of winter.  So for this New Year’s column, we will look at several works of historical fiction that illuminate the art and politics of Medici Florence and Borgia Rome. We begin with BOTTICELLI’S MUSE by Dorah Blume.  Drawing upon much of what is known about the artist’s life, Blume presents the political and artistic cosmos that is Renaissance Florence through the focus of one of history’s most compelling painters, Sandro Botticelli.  While under the patronage of Piero Medici, during a visit to his sister at her convent, Sandro meets and falls in love with Floriana, a Jewish weaver who will be the inspiration for his masterpiece La Primavera. But disruptive forces are at work, the radical priest Savonarola exhorting not just against Jews, but decrying books, art and the Medici rulers themselves.  Deftly handling a large cast of characters, including notables Lorenzo Medici and Lucrezia Borgia, Blume’s story draws out the heart of Florence during one of its most tumultuous periods. The Savonarola movement also plays…

With Christmas nearly upon us, thoughts turn to gifts, gift-giving and what a “gift” truly means.  What could be a greater blessing than realizing the “American Dream,” proving that with hard work and determination, a person can come from anywhere with virtually nothing and achieve whatever success they desire?  The set of stories we’ll look at this month feature both “haves” struggling to fit into their world and “have-nots” determined to create for themselves a future better than their past. Moving chronologically, we begin with THE SATURDAY EVENING GIRLS CLUB: A NOVEL by Jane Healey.  The author follows the lives of four young immigrant women in Boston’s North End, who find friendship and hope for a better life amid pottery-making and conversation at the Saturday Evening Girls Club.  All must fight not just poverty and prejudice, but the traditional expectations of their conservative ethnic families. Enterprising Caprice longs to become an entrepreneur running her own hat shop; bookish Ada, to obtain a college education, stunning Maria to avoid becoming trapped, like her Italian Catholic mother, in marriage to an abusive alcoholic, while timid Theo yearns to escape the rigid requirements of her strict Jewish tradition.  The friendship and support forged…

As we head into the holiday season, most of us anticipate sharing time with friends and family: those people who love us, assist us and bring joy to our lives.  Traditionally, women have played the supporting role in the family, taking care of the everyday business of life to smooth the paths for husband and children, sometimes at the cost of their own ambitions and talents.  This month we’ll look at fiction that focuses not on two famous, almost mythically larger-than-life men, but on the private lives of the often-overlooked women they married. Starting with the brilliant, we have THE OTHER EINSTEIN by Marie Benedict. Abandoning the usual early twentieth-century female role of wife and mother, Mitza Maric earned a coveted place studying physics at an elite Zurich university.  There she met another, equally brilliant student – the young Albert Einstein. Though Mitza had pledged with several fellow female students to avoid marriage and devote her life to science, she eventually agreed to wed Einstein, with whom she worked and collaborated – there are even proponents who believe she, not Albert, was the true author of the theory of relativity.  In any event, her husband removed her name as co-author…

With Paris Fashion Week beginning September 24, lovers of style and all things French turn their eyes to the City of Lights. In addition to producing iconic clothing, France’s twists, turns and sometime abrupt societal changes—from monarchy to revolution to empire–have long inspired historical novelists. Moving chronologically, we start with MADAME TUSSAUD: A NOVEL by best-selling author Michelle Moran. Trained by a Swiss doctor she calls her uncle, Marie Grosholtz becomes a skilled artist in the sculpting of wax and an astute businesswoman who helps run the family firm, Salon de Cire, which displays wax portraits and tableaux of the foremost personalities in France. Although her family’s home is a meeting place for budding revolutionaries like Desmoulins, Marat and Robespierre, when the royal family, impressed by her artistry, invites her to become a tutor to Princess Elizabeth, she cannot refuse. But as she gets to know her student, the king, and the queen better, she finds herself balancing a fine line between sympathy for her royal employers and the increasingly strident demands of the reformers. And when reform becomes the madness of the Reign of Terror, she must put pragmatism before loyalty and do what is necessary to insure that…

Fourth of July and Bastille Day celebrate the dynamic and unprecedented revolutions that spawned two new nations, one a former colony breaking away to control its own destiny, the other throwing off centuries of royal rule to create itself a republic—at least, for awhile. That Revolutionary France, and the dictatorship-turned-empire the followed, is explored by this column’s selection of historical fiction. Moving chronologically, we start with MADAME TUSSAUD: A NOVEL by best-selling author Michelle Moran. Trained by a Swiss doctor she calls her uncle, Marie Grosholtz becomes a skilled artist in the sculpting of wax and an astute businesswoman who helps run the family firm, Salon de Cire, which displays wax portraits and tableaux of the foremost personalities in France. Although her family’s home is a meeting place for budding revolutionaries like Desmoulins, Marat and Robespierre, when the royal family, impressed by her artistry, invites her to become a tutor to Princess Elizabeth, she cannot refuse. But as she gets to know her student, the king, and the queen better, she finds herself balancing a fine line between sympathy for her royal employers and the increasingly strident demands of the reformers. And when reform becomes the madness of the Reign…

As weather turns toward spring, thoughts turn toward love…and those of us who adore lushly romantic period drama sigh and miss “Downton Abbey” anew. What to do, but search for Downtonesque-books to fill that yearning? We begin in the Victorian era with Meredith Allard’s WHEN IT RAINED AT HEMBRY CASTLE. Wealthy American Daphne accompanies her father Frederick to England to visit his dying father, the 8th Earl of Staton. Discovering after their arrival that her cousin Richard, the earl’s heir, has no interest in either the title or the estate he is to inherit, Daphne’s father feels compelled to remain after his father’s death and run the estate for the unreliable new earl. Daphne is drawn into the aristocratic life by her grandmother, the dowager countess, who wants to turn her into an English lady and wed her to a titled husband. Although Daphne finds Edward Ellis, an enterprising young journalist—and grandson of Hembry Castle’s butler—far more fascinating that the aristocrats her grandmother recommends, Edward doesn’t travel in the same society as the residents of Hembry Castle—and is supposed to marry another girl. Love, duty and destiny clash as Daphne tried to untangle the complex web of conflicting interests and…

It’s a cliché that artistic people feel more intensely than non-artist types, are more driven by their passionate vision—and frequently live tragic lives. But in the process, they create work that enlightens and enthralls millions of viewers, listeners and readers. The novels we’ll look at here fully support the cliché. Whether the artist be painter, composer, or writer, the passion that consumes them often also brings heartache and disaster. While exploring the inner lives of these artists, the authors telling their stories also give us a vivid portrait of the age and the milieu that shaped them. What more can a reader ask of historical fiction? We begin with music in Janice Galloway’s CLARA, a novelization of the relationship between Robert and Clara Wieck Schumann. Clara’s demanding father, a piano teacher, set out to turn his talented daughter into a celebrated concert pianist—and succeeded. But his control over her began to weaken when pianist Robert Schumann became his student—and Clara fell in love with this man ten years her senior. Wieck vehemently opposed the love affair, refusing to permit them to wed after they became engaged when Clara turned 18. A court battle ensued, and two years later the couple…

Inspired by the release of the new film “Dunkirk,” which explores the rescue of the trapped British Expeditionary Force (by every vessel the British could muster, from Royal Navy warships to fishing boats to ferries,) this month we’ll look at fiction set in World War II. One of my favorite dramatizations of Dunkirk was an episode of the BBC series “Foyle’s War,” which shows this dramatic event from the home-front perspective. Our first two selections also show the war from the view of the British home front. In Jennifer Robson’s GOODNIGHT FROM LONDON, American Ruby Sutton feels her journalistic career is on the fast track when, in the summer of 1940, she wins the job as staff writer for a newsmagazine in London. She’s just started to adjust to living in a new country—and dealing with some of her colleagues’ resentment of her for being both a woman and an American—when the nightmare known as the Blitz begins. As the nightly bombings stretch from weeks into months, Ruby learns the depths of her own strength, the true meaning of friendship and community, and the heartache of love in wartime. Inspired by events in the life of the author’s grandmother, GOODNIGHT…

For many historical fiction fans, one of the draws of the genre is watching woman of past confront challenges and restrictions to open up new opportunities for themselves.  In honor of the recent birthdays of some extraordinary women—my mother-in-law, my stepmother and my daughter—this month I showcase a group of enterprising women who dare to dream of doing something more than filling a woman’s conventional place in society. We begin chronologically with THE DARING LADIES OF LOWELL by Kate Alcott.  Searching for independence and a better future, in 1832 farm girl Alice Barrow moves to Lowell to become one of the “mill girls.”  Though the hours are long and the work grueling, she finds a new best friend in outspoken, feisty Lovey Cornell, camaraderie with the other mill girls, and intellectual stimulation in attending lectures at the Lyceum and working on the mill’s literary magazine—where she catches the attention of mill owner’s son Samuel Fiske.  As working conditions become more dangerous and the workers protest, Samuel invites Alice to represent the other mill girls at a meeting with his family.  But when her friend Lovey is found strangled and she suspects the Fiske family of withholding information about the crime,…

Welcome again to Fresh Fiction’s Halloween Boo-k Spectacular Costume Party! Some of your favorite authors are sending their characters to this virtual party in style. Enter and be charmed by Will Ransleigh, hero of Julia Justiss‘s THE RAKE TO REDEEM HER. *** What better costume party guest than a charming rogue who’s a master of disguises? Illegitimate son of an earl’s brother, Will Ransleigh spent his early years on the London streets before being reluctantly reclaimed by his aristocratic family. His unusual upbringing enables him to move at ease among peers or paupers. Will’s attending the party in one of his favorite guises–as a traveling peddler. (The better to winkle out information, making idle chat with customers distracted by his shiny wares.) He’ll be garbed as a Regency hero, casual-style, in an open-collared white shirt, tight pantaloons and tall black boots, with a red gypsy sash to add flare. You’ll find the ever-convivial Will on the dance floor, downing rum punch, playing a few hands of cards, or charming the ladies with clever conversation. When not dancing or conversing, he’ll delight the women, finding pearls behind their ears, and amuse the gentlemen, plucking gold coins from their cuffs. At a…