“Every book is a separate little journey that we take it because we want to see where it leads,” says novelist Kieran Shields. “But alongside that desire to discover something new is a competing force, the pull of the familiar, that urge to search for a familiar face in a crowd, even when you’re in a strange new place. As intriguing as it is to start down a new road, it can feel all the richer for knowing that you’ll see old friends along the way. I suppose that’s the answer to why I wrote a sequel. I’d spent a lot of time with these characters in The Truth of All Things. I wasn’t ready to part company from them just yet. I wanted to know what happens next.”
Historial Fiction
Read It Forward features a wide range of well-written, well-researched historical fiction. For readers who love devouring stories set in another time and place.
Join Read It Forward here on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. ET for a LIVE VIDEO CHAT with novelists Sarah McCoy and Vincent Lam. Vincent and Sarah will answer your questions about writing fiction, specifically the kind of historical fiction that breaks down genre boundaries. RSVP now and see you soon!
“On more than one occasion,” writes Michelle Moran, bestselling author of The Second Empress, “Napoleon’s sister Pauline Borghese went so far as to make statements to foreign diplomats hinting at an illicit relationship between her and her brother. But there is no doubt that Pauline loved to titillate. Whether or not such a relationship existed, she enjoyed the power this kind of speculation gave her. By linking herself sexually to the most powerful man in the world, she accomplished what even Joséphine couldn’t: a reputation as the most alluring woman in Europe. A woman whose own brother couldn’t resist her.”
“The writing in Madame Tussaud is so good that I felt like I was in Paris, experiencing the events firsthand for myself,” writes SuperRIFer Mary Jo. “The second half of the book flew by, and each night I couldn’t wait to jump into bed and open the book to read a few more chapters before sleep. I think it’s the mark of a true writer when, after reading one of her books, a reader looks up more by the same author. That is exactly what I did. I am a new Moran fan and recommend this book to everyone!”
“In writing historical novels, I’ve come to feel that I’ve jumped the fence, so to speak, taking on the role of literary tomb raider,” writes Kieran Shields, author of The Truth of All Things. “Less gruesome than actual grave robbing, sure, but the same idea. Sneaking across hallowed ground, rummaging about for earthly remains and lost treasures – even if here those amount to no more than bits and pieces of what made these vanished lives real. It’s finding those bits and shining a long absent light on them that’s such an enjoyable challenge for me as a writer. That feeling, of standing crowbar in hand at the tomb door while the intrepid reader peers over one shoulder, lamp held high against the night, came to life for me in writing The Truth of All Things.”
“We need to have head shots but, being writers, we don’t want to pay for them,” says Stephen Gallagher, author of The Bedlam Detective. “Sometimes your publisher will commission some publicity stills but that doesn’t always work out – Hodder & Stoughton once sent me to a man who specialized in photographing fruit for Marks & Spencer. Maybe they chose him because of the “&”. I don’t know what fruit he had in mind when he studied me – maybe Zombie Cucumber. We took the shots in his attic, with me lurking behind a wormy pillar or looking out around a peeling chimney wall. The result: I looked like a ghoul in the fourth stage of something terminal.”
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