If you liked Bridgerton you will adore the Carsington series by Loretta Chase, beginning with Miss Wonderful. Too many romance novels sacrifice dialogue for sex. Not this one, or its sequels. Mirabel Oldridge challenges the Honorable Alistair Carsington mentally, emotionally, socially, politically, and when he finally manages to get his hands on her, physically. One…
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction (written for Writer’s Digest) by Dana Stabenow I only wish I’d had this list when I began writing, but thirty-seven novels later I do have a few things figured out. I don’t follow all these rules slavishly. I say begin with the murder but…often I don’t. Every writer does…
Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek, a direct descendant of Ptolemy I, who plucked the plum of Alexandria and Egypt when the generals divvied up the empire after Alexander the Great’s death. Alexandria was founded by Alexander, a city on the edge of the Middle Sea (aka the Mediterranean) that had only increased in size, beauty and…
Ree Dolly’s father is due for a court hearing and he has signed over the family home as bond. Now he’s missing, and the cops tell his sixteen-year old daughter that their home is forfeit if he doesn’t show. Ree, sole support and care-giver of a mother who has slipped her leash on sanity and…
Morning of the day before: 20 ounces unbleached white flour 1 teaspoon granulated sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt 1 scant teaspoon yeast 2 cups cold water Stir all ingredients together into a gooey dough. Spray lightly with oil, cover tightly with saran wrap, and let sit overnight on the counter. It will double, if…
A friend who knows I am writing a series set in Cleopatra’s Alexandria was greatly exercised over some of Cleopatra’s decisions. “Why did she make Antony leave Octavia? It gave Octavian all the ammunition he needed to move against her. How could she have done something so stupid?” To which I replied, I admit with…
The twelfth book in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series and one of the best so far. A fish out of water/stranger in a strange land story, with PI’s Lydia Chin and Bill Smith being hired (sort of) by Lydia’s mother to go to the aid of a relative in Mississippi who has been arrested for…
[2016 interview with author Gwen Florio for ITW] First things first: I probably pronounce your name differently each time I say it. Please help save me from myself—Stab-en-oh or Stab-en-ow? STAH (as in stab) eh no You are best known for your 20-book series featuring Kate Shugak, an Aleut private investigator who lives in a…
The commonly accepted story arc for Cleopatra is: Caesar. Antony. Dead. Shakespeare even cut her arc by a third in his Antony and Cleopatra. At least the film managed to get all three plot points in. I was a freshman in Seldovia High when Mr. Winklebleck walked us through Julius Caesar and made us (well,…
Read more The commonly accepted story arc for Cleopatra is: Caesar. Antony. Dead.
Not to be confused with Samuel Johnson, who wrote the dictionary, which I always do. No, this book is a biography of Samuel Pepys, who wrote the Diary. An up-from-nothing country boy, Pepys’ abilities and high-placed relatives put him at the center of English history for the last half of of the 1600’s. He witnessed…
