Psssst! Have you heard about Elagabalus? They say he invented the world’s first whoopee cushion. No, really! I’m pretty sure I heard Mary Beard say that.
They also say he was as gay as America’s Next Drag … Read the article
In 1914, the hot ticket on Broadway was On Trial, a play that employed the daring film technique of the “flashback.” You could catch the moody John Barrymore in Kick In, Douglas Fairbanks in He Comes Up … Read the article
One of my favorite parts of writing historical fiction is the new things I get to learn along the way. It’s important, of course, to go into writing a book with a base knowledge of the historical … Read the article
It’s always wonderful when a novel becomes a cheap excuse to do a deep dive into a subject near and dear to your heart. When researching Death of a Showman, the fourth Jane Prescott mystery, I was … Read the article
The first images that usually pop to mind with the word “Prohibition” are of dapper men and women in speakeasies enjoying illicit libations… until police officers brandishing guns and batons rush in to raid the joint and … Read the article
The Golden Age of detective fiction, the era of classic murder mystery novels, is defined as those written in the 1920s and 1930s, which saw the advent of authors such as Agatha Christie, G.K.Chesterton, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy … Read the article
The television series The Crown, written by Peter Morgan, inspired by the history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II from 1947 to the present day, is hugely popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Fantastic … Read the article
“I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days.”
–Theodore Roosevelt… Read the article
‘So, you are writing another novel about Catherine the Great?’
Err – no!
Before there was Catherine II, or the Great, whose life and rule has inspired dozens of adaptations, there was Catherine I of Russia—the most … Read the article
It’s a well-known fact that cats and writers share a special bond.
As the American author, Andre Norton (1912-2005) said, “Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed … Read the article