This is how research works for writers. Pay attention, writers. (Literally and figuratively.) In preparation for writing The Harvey Girl, I read a bunch of books to do with Gilded Age America and the American Southwest in the 1890s, which must perforce include reading about Mexico during that same time. One very useful book was…
The final draft of the map for The Harvey Girl! Courtesy of Cartographers Extraordinaire (yes, that is their official title) Cherie and Thom Northon at mapmakers.com. You will have seen their website on all of the maps in all my books from the Kate Shugak series on. This long-term professional relationship came about by way…
The New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe had a small but choice Fred Harvey exhibit in October 2024, which is where I saw this portrait of Fred Harvey. Since the portrait was painted in 1890, I used it to inspire the way I wrote him in The Harvey Girl. Signed first edition hardcovers available…
My editor had me write a letter to be included with the advanced reading copies he was sending out, and Emily (aka She Who Must Be Obeyed at Bloomsbury Marketing) rewarded the sweat of my fevered brow by gussying it up. Check it out. The obverse: And the reverse: Not too shabby, eh? (channelling my…
Ruth, Dora, Alyce and Hank, four teens in Fairbanks and Southeast Alaska in 1965, are each stumbling through the aftermath of the loss of a parent or parents through death or divorce or negligence. The story is told in their alternating viewpoints, and the thing I liked most was the wealth of detail that comes…
Yeah, I know, I’ve shared this before, but I just saw it again on a “Best Super Bowl tv ads” list (which list included none of this year’s) and this was on it and I was limp in the hands of fate. Enjoy! I always do. (I love how the wife looks at the husband…
Photos from my October 2024 research trip in northwestern New Mexico. The Harvey House in Belen, New Mexico, which was the model for the Montaña Roja Harvey House in The Harvey Girl. The restoration has been beautifully done and they’re still serving Fred Harvey recipes in a little cafe in the back. One of the…
Written at the request of Zoe, She Who Must Be Obeyed at Head of Zeus’ promotional department. For one thing, the parallels between that time and this are inescapable. I just read a book by a Stanford professor named Richard White who posits that the robber barons then weren’t all that smart or attractive and…
