Category Archives: Historical Fiction

The Reluctant Widow

The time and place: early 19th century England, during the Napoleonic Wars. Miss Elinor Rochdale, on her way to take up a post of governess, alights from a stagecoach in the village of Billingshurst. She is expecting to be met—by … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Fiction, Romantic suspense | Leave a comment

The Queen’s Man

December 1192. Twenty-year-old Justin de Quincy, unacknowledged bastard son of a bishop, is on the road to London in search of gainful employment when he interrupts a violent robbery in progress. The robbers flee, scared off by the approach of … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Mysteries | Leave a comment

The Quicksilver Pool

This was a pleasant surprise. The blurb on my copy of The Quicksilver Pool by Phyllis Whitney paints it as a somewhat cliché gothic novel. When I paid a couple of dollars for this vintage (1955) novel at a used … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Fiction | Leave a comment

Flashback

Anna Pigeon is enjoying her temporary assignment as Acting Supervisory Ranger of the Dry Tortugas National Park. The Dry Tortugas, seventy miles further into the Gulf of Mexico than Key West, is one of the U.S. National Park System’s least … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Mysteries, Mysteries | Leave a comment

Death and Taxes

Death and taxes: the only things certain in this world, and they’ve taken a toll on us over the last few weeks. Between a funeral (of a friend and former neighbour, not a family member) and some complications in our … Continue reading

Posted in A Writer's Life, Historical Mysteries, Mysteries, On Reading | 2 Comments

The Relentless Moon

In my last post, I wrote about The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal. That book had its good points, but I had some reservations about it. I liked The Relentless Moon, … Continue reading

Posted in Alternate History, Mysteries, Science Fiction | Leave a comment

The Calculating Stars

3 March 1952. A large meteorite hits Washington, D.C., wipes out most of the East Coast of the United States, and deals massive economic and emotional shocks to the entire world. The amount of ejecta in the atmosphere also triggers … Continue reading

Posted in Alternate History, Science Fiction | Leave a comment

The Bookman’s Tale

When grieving widower Peter Byerly pulls an old book off a shelf in a secondhand bookstore, he discovers a loose sheet of paper, four inches square, tucked into its pages. He turns the paper over, and nearly collapses in the … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Fiction, Mysteries | Leave a comment

A Few Short Reviews

The Stone Wētā by Octavia Cade is a timely and rather chilling take on the repression of scientific data by climate deniers and corporate/political interests. It reads a bit like a World War II spy story, with the scientists acting … Continue reading

Posted in Climate fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Kiwi author | Leave a comment

Time and Again

One January night in 1970, illustrator Simon (Si) Morley walks out of a New York City apartment and into the night of 21 January 1882. Si is a participant in a secret government project attempting time travel, but he hasn’t … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Fiction, Science Fiction | Leave a comment