1–What is the title of your latest release? THE GOOD WIFE OF BATH 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?  Set in the Middle Ages, it’s the story of the most infamous of Geoffrey Chaucer’s characters from his Canterbury Tales – the bold, sensual, assertive, and much-married Wife of Bath – but told in her own voice. The reader meets her at 12 years of age and we’re taken through her five marriages and what becomes of her beyond the limits of Chaucer’s poem in every way. It’s funny, heart-wrenching, infuriating, and draws on history to tell a much-maligned woman’s (mostly) true story.  3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place?   Ah, that was easy. I had great source material with the original poem, so placed my characters in all the places the poem mentions – Bath in England and its surrounds, but also medieval London, Cologne, Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury, and other places too. I was able to travel vicariously when the world was shut down. A wonderful guilty pleasure, really.  4–What are three words that describe your main character?  Sassy, clever, and kind. 5–Which side character stole your attention the most from the main…

Another family dinner. This one on a random Thursday evening in mid-September. Same kitchen. Same table with the wobbly leg. Same people. One husband. One seven-year-old boy who hated anything that wasn’t a chicken nugget. One brother-in-law who might be a killer. Not a that was a horrible accident type of killer either. No. A person who killed over and over, targeting and wiping out the women closest to him. Elisa Wright looked across the table, over the pile of mashed potatoes and stack of homemade dinner rolls, at Josh. She couldn’t shake the now familiar anxious churning. With every forkful of food, every joke, every smile he gifted them, the word murderer flashed in her mind. She closed her eyes but the bright kitchen lights wouldn’t blink out. The truth gnawed and pricked at her. Exploded in her head and shot through her while she assessed and dissected every word he said, looking for clues. The big problem? She was the only one who questioned him. Everyone loved Josh. He was attractive, but not too much. Successful, but not too much. With brown eyes and brown hair that curled at the ends, he looked like an older version of…

But it’s August!” said Carmen into the phone, putting down her book. “August! It’s almost sunny outside! I have sandals on! Ice- cream vans patrol the land! I put sunblock on last week and almost needed it! How can I possibly get my head round what you’re asking me?” “I’m just saying,” her mother’s soft voice came again, and Car-men sighed. They had the same tussle every year. “It’s just useful to know early, that’s all. And of course Sofia . . .” Carmen screwed up her face. “Yes, she’s popping out yet an-other sprog and overpopulating the world, blah blah blah, I know.” “Carmen June Hogan. Be nice.” “Come on, Mum. She’s already got three. She’s just being greedy. Anyway, I don’t know what I might be doing at Christmas. I might be going away.” Who with?” Her mother sounded skeptical. “I could meet someone between now and Christmas! And he could whisk me off to Barbados! Or LA!” Her mother smiled. “So you’re not coming home for Christmas because you’ll be in LA.” “I could be in LA.” Carmen couldn’t, she thought, be the only person in the world who was both nearly thirty and who still turned into a stroppy…

“You can’t leave me,” my best friend whispers into the phone, her voice urgent and filled with abject terror. In the background, I hear Lillianna Cox, the world’s worst boss, having one of her legendary temper tantrums. “Yikes. That’s at least one good thing about this whole situation. I’ll never have to hear that again.” It’s not the answer Cassie wants to hear. “Meghan Ann Julliard. Get right back onto that plane and fly back to New York. I can’t do this alone. I heard she’s making us work late on Christmas Eve, and anyone who doesn’t show up to her party on New Year’s is getting written up. Then—” She cuts off, and the phone goes dead. I can only imagine that Lillianna caught her on the phone. Personal calls are prohibited at Stitch, and since it’s the top fashion magazine at the moment, everyone will put up with any rule and the world’s worst boss to work there. I personally tried for four years to get on staff . . . and a scant six months later, here I am. Leaving it behind. So, as I sit on the El and watch Chicago’s skyscape blur past, I don’t…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE FRENCH GIFT 2–What is it about? THE FRENCH GIFT is a dual time-line story of female friendship, longing and sacrifice through war and loss, bringing together the present and the past. The story begins with Margot Bisset—a French maid on the Riviera—who is convicted of murder after a glamorous party takes a surprising turn. She is interned in a German rayon factory, and develops an unlikely friendship with the brilliant writer and resistance fighter Joséphine Murant. In a German WWII rayon factory, two female prisoners support one another—and others—in horrific circumstances and form an unbreakable bond. In her later years, Joséphine Murant retires to the Riviera and continues the career she has built as an international bestselling mystery writer. Overlaying this is a contemporary storyline: the healing, hunt-for-truth story of Evie—and her 17-year-old-son Hugo—as they try to make peace and heal following the tragic death of beloved father/husband, Rafael, two years ago.   Mother and son decide to summer at an old family house in the Riviera—inherited from Rafael’s great-aunt Joséphine Murant—to help local museum director—the handsome and gentle Clément Dumas—prepare a retrospective exhibition. Together they hunt for a missing manuscript that…

In spite of the fish vans that clatter through the town on their way to London and the hop pickers who arrive daily by wagon, Tonbridge does not have the hustle and bustle of Ipswich. This pleases Mother, who crows constantly about Tonbridge’s superior inhabitants and its superior visitors. And it is these that she has her ruthless gimlet eye upon: the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who come to take the waters of our neighboring spa town, Tunbridge Wells, and are in need of superior rooms. Our rented home is newly built and has its name—Bordyke House—carved into the lintel. As befits a superior boardinghouse, it is spacious, well furnished, and situated well away from the town’s open drains. And yet it feels all wrong, like a poorly cut coat. Perhaps this is because Edgar has set sail to make his fortune in Mauritius, and Catherine and Anna have taken up positions as governesses—all of us fleeing gossip and disgrace—so it is only Mother and I rattling around here. Or perhaps it is because no amount of superiority can disguise our future as the landladies of a boardinghouse. We are in the morning room—yellow walls, armchairs upholstered in a shiny…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE STOLEN LADY: A Novel of WWII & the Mona Lisa  2–What is it about? Two women, separated by 500 years, hide the Mona Lisa—with unintended consequences. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  In a year when no one could leave home, traveling vicariously by writing THE STOLEN LADY truly kept me sane. In my imagination, I whisked myself away to Renaissance Florence, over the Alps to the Louvre, to the breathtaking châteaux of the Loire Valley, and to the hulking medieval abbeys of southern France. What an incredible imaginary journey during the strangest of times! 4–How did your main character(s) surprise you?  As a novelist, I have long wanted to explore the mind of someone who threw a treasured possession onto the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence in February 1497. But building out the mindset and background of such a character (Bellina—a servant in Lisa Gherardini’s house) made me ask so many questions and then rethink them all. 5–Why will readers relate to your characters?  Bellina (at the turn of the 16th-century) and Anne (in the 1940s) are average women facing extraordinary circumstances. I think we’ve…

I want you to tell her to stop hiding my baccy!” Ernest Plumb was one of Imelda’s regulars. He was a short, stocky man with a bellicose air, who trailed a pungent whiff of mothballs and pipe smoke in his wake. Since his wife, Joan, had died, he had come to see her every few weeks to continue the constant bickering that had been the mainstay of their forty-two-year marriage. Imelda had tried explaining to Ernest that spiritual readings weren’t like telephone conversations. She couldn’t simply dial dead people and have a chat at will. Joan was no more cooperative in death than she had been in life. She only came through when it suited her, but today she did have something to say and Imelda struggled to suppress a grin. “Joan says that she’ll stop hiding your stinking tobacco when you stop living like a filthy pig and wash the net curtains at the sitting room window. And she wants you to stop smoking your pipe in the house. She says that’s what your bloody shed is for.” “It’s not like he uses it for anything else,” Joan grumbled. Imelda could see her standing behind Ernest with her hands…

“Mr. Astor, a pleasure to see you this evening,” the dark-coated maître d’ greeted, flashing a wide smile beneath his thin mustache. “A pleasure to be here. Anyone we should be concerned about inside? We have the Premier’s niece, Miss Katherine Ormsby-Gore, Miss Dinah Brand, and Miss Christian Grant.” “Michael, don’t tell him who we are.” Katherine glanced around as if anyone who was mingling nearby might care or notice. “Don’t fret, Mr. Rossi won’t tell a soul you’ve been here.” “If I were so indiscreet we’d be closed in a month,” Mr. Rossi assured them. “Not to worry, ladies, no one of concern to any of you is here tonight. Should one arrive, I’ll notify you at once. We don’t like awkward scenes at the 400 Club.” “How does he know who we should and shouldn’t be worried about?” Valerie whispered to Jakie. “Mr. Rossi knows more about people’s lineage than Debrett’s. Don’t worry, you’re in capable hands.” “Table forty-eight, John.” He handed them off to a young waiter, who led them into the heart of the small and dimly lit club. Valerie and the girls gaped at the pillars holding up the low ceiling and the dark silk…

14. Crab Crack Six blue crabs rattle in a white bucket at my feet, blowing bubbles and pinching one another’s legs. A gigantic stainless-steel pot boils on the stove. Steam billows overhead, making the already-toasty kitchen even hotter. I dump the blue crabs in-ide. They die instantly, I hope. When they pinken, I drain the pot and carry our Monthly Monday dinner to the porch. For the crab crack, Weezy and I have assembled newspapers, paper towels, heavy spoons, and a bowl of water. Weezy wears an old nursing bra and some stretchy biker shorts. Her grow- ing belly pokes out beneath a tank top. Our legs need shaving. Dirt collects in the spaces between my toes, beneath my nails. We’ve wrapped our hair in careless buns, high off our necks. We sit on the floor. Weezy goes for the claws first. She cracks the shell open with a mallet. I start by prying off the carapace. Warm goop drips from my fingers to the newspaper. I use a spoon to scrape away the gills. I swish the carcass around in the water bowl to clean off excess innards. After I break the body in half, it strikes me that…