New Books Network discussion

Gogolian hero in 19th-century rural Russia reclaims his inheritance and seeks revenge for past wrongs:

.

You can listen free to an interview with Julian Berengaut at New Books in Historical Fiction.

This "irrestistible cipher between two covers—an atmospheric tale of many rogues and a few innocents gambling on politics and romance in the cold, cruel north" (from the New York Times Book Review) should not be missed.



Karen Engelmann talks about Stockholm, fans, politics, and more at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The Moscow show trials destroyed the last of Stalin's political opponents through accusations of monstrous and improbable crimes. Who testified to these obvious lies, and why?

You can listen to an interview with Julius Wachtel at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The precursor to 2013's Behind the Shattered Glass and a wonderful romp in its own right, this latest in the Lady Emily mysteries involves a trip to Venice and a medieval manuscript that just may echo down the ages. Because in Venice, memories are long.



You can listen to an interview with Tasha Alexander at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The atrocities of Nazi Germany are well known, but what possessed doctors, sworn to heal, to conduct gruesome medical experiments on concentration-camp prisoners? This question drives



Douglas R. Skopp talks about his views and his research at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Lenin's Harem: not a bevy of sultry beauties but an elite Latvian military regiment that guarded the Kremlin in the early days of Soviet power. For more on who these soldiers were and what happened to them between the world wars, see my interview with William B. McCormick at New Books in Historical Fiction.

I'm a huge fan of author Laurie R. King, especially her novels featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. I was delighted when she agreed to an interview about the latest in the Russell/Holmes series:



And of course, she did not disappoint. You can hear the results at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The book that almost didn't get published, then went on to become a bestseller. Even the FBI cooperated by announcing a few months after its release that it knew who had committed the theft (from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) that forms the heart of the story.



For these details and more, check out the interview with B.A. Shapiro at New Books in Historical Fiction.

John Knox, that stern father of the Scottish Reformation: who would want to write a novel about him? Well, listen to Marie Macpherson at New Books in Historical Fiction, and you will know the answer to that question.

Quakers are peaceful souls, so why have they performed supporting roles during every war in U.S. history? Author Janet Kastner Olshewsky talks about her ancestors and how she came to write down this part of their story in a novel aimed at young people but also accessible to their teachers and parents.



You can listen to the interview at New Books in Historical Fiction.

It's never easy to pack up and move 3,000 miles away from home, to a dry and dusty land in the midst of a drought, where you have nothing to sustain you but faith. To then lose your only child to kidnappers makes even faith a questionable support. Virginia Pye, the daughter of a noted Sinologist and the granddaughter of U.S. missionaries to China, creates in luminous prose this homage to a past she can only imagine.



My interview with Virginia Pye is available free at New Books in Historical Fiction.

One wrong move, and your attempt to escape a hideous marriage to a dead guy lands you in the afterlife, roaming hungry along uncharted paths hoping that your relatives will wise up enough to burn something for you to eat and a horse for you to ride. That's the premise behind Yangsze Choo's delightful debut novel.




For more on the Chinese afterlife, first impressions of Harvard, and the elephant detective novel that never saw the light of day, listen to Yangsze Choo's interview at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The circus dancer who became an empress: who can resist a story like that? Follow Carol Strickland as she discusses sixth-century Byzantium and the rise to power of the wildly misunderstood Empress Theodora at New Books in Historical Fiction.

By day, Ian Mortimer is a well-respected historian of medieval and Renaissance England. By night, he masquerades as James Forrester, the equally well-respected and erudite author of The Clarenceux Trilogy.



Listen to Ian/James talk about the tensions and joys of a historian writing historical fiction at New Books in Historical Fiction.

On the night of March 9, 1948, Zelda Fitzgerald—wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the model for Daisy Buchanan in his The Great Gatsby—died in a fire in a mental hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Lee Smith traces the events leading up the fire in her latest venture into historical fiction.



Lee shares many wonderful stories about this and her earlier books at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Those are all the interviews currently available at this channel in the New Books Network.

Check back once a month for new interview links. Interviews on New Books in Historical Fiction generally go live between the 17th and the 22nd of the month; each channel has its own schedule, set by the host.

In the meantime, feel free to leave comments under Arts and Letters in the Listeners' Corner. Let us know which authors you'd like to hear and which books you'd like me to feature (but I am booked far into the future, so please don't be upset if it turns out that I can't honor every request).

We do ask you to post comments in the Listeners' Corner rather than here in this thread, to make it easier for other Goodreads members to find interviews they may like. Thank you for observing that restriction.

My latest interview with Jessica Brockmole just went live at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Can an extroverted college student from the American Midwest and a poet who has never left her Hebridean island bond through an exchange of letters? What will be the consequences, to them and to their families, if they do? Find out more in Jessica Brockmole's beautiful debut novel, Letters from Skye.

When a man has defined his life by service to his lord, how does he adjust when that lord dies? How does he cope when his society blames him for the death? When he blames himself?

For a discussion of these and other questions, listen to my interview with James Aitcheson, now available at New Books in Historical Fiction.

What's it like to be the unremarkable middle sister in a family where all the other daughters are either charming, beautiful, intelligent, or flirtatious? Austen and Heyer fans, this one's for you!



To find out more, including what it takes to expand on a classic, listen to my interview with Pamela Mingle, now available at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Art, law, freedom, slavery, abolitionism, self-discovery, hidden pasts: this novel seamlessly interweaves many themes into one gloriously written tapestry.



Listen to the interview at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Ancient Egypt, warring sisters, and a young woman finding her place within the pharaoh's court. Listen to Goodreads author Libbie Hawker (who also writes as L.M. Ironside) talk about her research, her writing, and her experience with self-publishing at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The indomitable Uhtred of Bebbanburg is back in The Pagan Lord, his seventh adventure in The Saxon Tales. You can hear Uhtred's chronicler, the bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, discuss his writing life, his many series, and Uhtred's past, present, and future at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Arabs vs. Persians, Sunni fighting Shi'a, skullduggery in Central Asia, the rise and fall of caliphates: should be ancient history, right?

Well, it is, and it isn't. To learn more, listen to my interview with Liv Bliss, translator of Dmitry Chen's The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas, at New Books in Historical Fiction.

In 1492, when Columbus was busy discovering America with funding from Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella were just as busy consolidating their kingdom in the name of Catholicism, even if that meant expelling a Jewish population that had lived in the area since Roman times.

For a discussion of this and much more, see my interview with Laurel Corona about her book The Mapmaker's Daughter at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Was Leo Tolstoy's son really his brother? Did Madame de Stäel drive the Russian Revolution through three lifetimes and a hundred times as many lovers, one of whom happened to be Joseph Stalin? Or has the hero of Vladimir Sharov's Before and During taken far too much medication?

Join me as I discuss these and other questions with Oliver Ready, Sharov's translator, at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Daughters becoming sons, women dressed as men—the history of female subordination in Afghanistan is more complex than you might imagine.

Nadia Hashimi talks about these and other elements of The Pearl that Broke Its Shell at New Books in Historical Fiction this month.

Skullduggery and scheming in the brand-new state of Oregon. Find out more in our interview with Phillip Margolin about Worthy Brown's Daughter at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The Gondola Maker: Renaissance art, gondolas, and boatmen struggling to make their way in 16th-century Venetian society—all delivered in beautiful, haunting prose. A great read, and a wonderfully informative interview with Laura Morelli at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The process of invention is rarely smooth, even when you don't know that the product you're developing really will change the world. Gutenberg's Apprentice follows a talented scribe as he learns to love the new technology of the printing press. Listen to the interview with Alix Christie at New Books in Historical Fiction as we talk about the eerie similarities between the effects of Gutenberg's invention and the present-day technological revolution in publishing.

A new and wonderful look at a very familiar story. Listen to the interview with Ann Swinfen about The Testament of Mariam and her other books at New Books in Historical Fiction.

A deeply thoughtful exploration of prejudice, its causes, and the experiences that convince people to adopt a more nuanced, less knee-jerk response to others, told through the events leading up to the Freedom Summer of 1964.



You can heard the full interview at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Not exactly historical fiction, nor even historical fantasy, but a fascinating invention exploring the medieval outlook all the same. You can hear my interview with Erika Johansen at New Books in Historical Fiction.

A compelling portrait of early twentieth-century Boston and New York. Listen to Alan Geik talk about his novel in this New Books in Historical Fiction interview.

Espionage, romance, and international politics on the French coast, ca. 1802, make for a winning combination in The Tide Watchers: A Novel.



Listen to Lisa Chaplin discuss her novel at New Books in Historical Fiction.

No one does skullduggery quite like the 13th-century Scottish clans—not to mention their English adversaries, led by King Edward I (Longshanks). If you'd like know what happened after the movie Braveheart, this interview with Glen Craney about his novel The Spider and the Stone: A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas at New Books in Historical Fiction is for you.

Hint: This is where the Scots won, at least for a while.

In this beautifully written and poignant story, Lucy SannaLucy Sanna explores the complexity of love and loyalty in a world where even the distant echoes of war prove impossible to ignore.

You can hear the interview at New Books in Historical Fiction.

For those who can't get enough of the Tudors—or who can't stand another look at the Catherine/Anne controversy—this interview with Sarah Kennedy about her novel The King's Sisters and its predecessors is for you!

Civil war, occupation, revolution—China in 1937 had conflict to spare. For a small group of missionaries from the United States, cultural misunderstandings clash with the yearning to help, and one family's tragedy becomes a mirror to examine a nation's.

For a discussion with Virginia Pye about her Dreams of the Red Phoenix, see New Books in Historical Fiction.

For the real story behind Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, at least from the perspective of her younger sister, May, see our interview with Jeannine Atkins at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Villagers are dying of a mysterious, previously unknown disease in 14th-century France. Fear breeds mistrust and a search for scapegoats. Suspicion settles on the local midwife, whose uncanny healing skills smack, to the villagers, of witchcraft....

Interview with Liza Perrat at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Everyone writes about Henry VIII and his wives—or about Elizabeth I, Gloriana herself. But the short reign of Elizabeth's older sister, Mary, goes largely unexplored in fiction. For a group of English Catholic nobles, Mary's imminent demise and the ascension of a Protestant queen bodes nothing but trouble. Some Rise By Sin looks at this transition from the viewpoints of a reluctant earl and the beautiful artist he is chaperoning around London, even as they wonder whether they will still be alive a few weeks from now.

For an interview with Courtney J. Hall, see New Books in Historical Fiction.

A Burgundian princess, a magic sword, a mighty nomadic chieftain, and the chicanery of both Roman empires—eastern and western—enliven The Last Wife of Attila the Hun, a dramatic re-imagining of history and myth.

For an interview with Joan Schweighardt, see New Books in Historical Fiction.

The art of the dance in Hindu temples in the time of Emperor Akbar: a rich and absorbing account of a land—and an art form—in the midst of change. You can hear Anjali Mitter Duva discuss dance, Indian history, and her debut novel Faint Promise of Rain at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Thirty seconds of violence, 130 years of destroyed reputation: this is the story of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. For the events leading up to and extending far beyond those 30 seconds, listen to the interview with Mary Doria Russell about her novels Doc and Epitaph (and the books before) at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Palace intrigue, romance, and a young woman's coming of age enliven this two-part tale of Tang Dynasty China and the only woman in Chinese history to rule in her own name. Interview with Weina Dai Randel about The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Olive Thomas was once a silent movie star who looked set for a career as successful as that of her sister-in-law Mary Pickford. Now few people know her name. But in The Forgotten Flapper: A Novel of Olive Thomas, Laini Giles tries to set the record straight. A funny and touching book about the Roaring 1910s (yes, you read that right).



Free podcast interview with Laini Giles at New Books in Historical Fiction.

A stillborn child, two orphan boys, a wealthy attorney and his young servant, a well-educated young woman who would rather nurse than marry, and the contrasting, complementary communities of black and white in late nineteenth-century Philadelphia entwine in Lazaretto.

Interview with Diane McKinney-Whetstone at New Books in Historical Fiction.

The early days of the California wine industry, before the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Two determined immigrants from France struggle against the elements, the phylloxera blight, as they strive to balance the demands and the delights of married life in The California Wife.



Interview with Kristen Harnisch at New Books in Historical Fiction.

Glorious music, intolerance, and a missing Bach cantata unite the generations in And After the Fire, Lauren Belfer’s acclaimed novel about the Holocaust, its place in the trajectory of European history, and its repercussions for today.



Interview with the author at New Books in Historical Fiction

Plots, counterplots, deception, skullduggery, assassinations, romance, and politics: The Serpent's Crown: A Novel of Medieval Cyprus has it all.

For an interview with Hana Samek Norton, see New Books in Historical Fiction.