To step into an Islamic home in the Middle Ages was to enter an exotic but familiar world. Family life revolved around the sanctuary of the women. Known to the West as harem, the term referred to the inner sanctum of a house and its mainly female occupants. It was… Read More »At Home in the Harem, by Lisa Yarde
Although most of my Silver Rush historical mysteries are set high in the Rocky Mountains in 1880s Leadville, Colorado, the fourth and latest, Mercury’s Rise, has my protagonist Inez Stannert heading down to Manitou Springs to reunite with her young son and his guardian, Inez’s beloved sister. As I nosed… Read More »Consumed by Consumption in the 19th Century American West – TB and Mercury’s Rise, by Ann Parker
I both love and hate doing research. It’s often tedious, always time consuming. Sometimes I’m looking for a needle in a haystack, (like when, for another book, I needed to find an example of a kiss between bride and groom during a wedding ceremony). Sometimes I’m looking for information, bits… Read More »Research and Setting, by V. R. Christensen
A Hostage to Heritage was released last month. It’s the second title in the Michael Stoddard American Revolution Thriller series and my fifth work of crime fiction set during the southern theater of the Revolutionary War. In a review for this book, one ARC reader wrote: “Although the setting is… Read More »Creating Tension Without Using Gratuitous Violence, by Suzanne Adair
Readers often comment that my stories immerse them fully in the fictional world I’ve created. Achieving that “You Are Here” feeling is a challenge for most authors. Those who write historical fiction wish they had a time machine, a way to experience what the past was like. I write crime… Read More »My Time Machine, by Suzanne Adair