FAREWELL MY LIFE is in three parts. The second part, AN UNSUITABLE SUITOR opens in Berlin, Germany in January 1922. At that time, Berlin was a poor and impoverished city, still recovering […]
PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain is a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson, and the time they spent together in Paris during the 1920s. Hadley Richardson was not […]
“Catch and Kill” refers to a tactic used by news organizations to get rid of stories they don’t like. They spend a (HUGE) sum of money to buy the rights to the […]
What was the first historical novel you read? I’m not sure, but I remember enjoying Jean Plaidy’s Isabella & Ferdinand trilogy (Castile for Isabella, Spain for the Sovereigns, and Daughters of Spain) […]
But the bears I’d seen were black or brown, and were large, muscly, fearsome creatures. This thing was not only the wrong color, it was—stuffed. Like that strange cat, no muscle nor […]
FAREWELL MY LIFE is three parts. The first part, THE LOST MOTHER opens in Georgetown in September 1921. At that time Georgetown was NOT the busy commercial hub that it now is, […]
THE DAUGHTERS OF PALATINE HILL is the sequel to I AM LIVIA. Whereas the first novel dealt with the life of Livia Drusilla and her relationship with the Emperor Augustus, DAUGHTERS deals […]
I AM LIVIA opens in an arresting way, when 15-year-old Livia Drusilla overhears her father and his friends plotting to murder Julius Caesar. Most novels would be a disappointment after that opening. […]
What does your writing routine look like? The truth is that I don’t have a writing routine. When I write, I work every day in the morning because that is my best […]
The animal resembled a cat with deep sea-green eyes and orange fur. But something wasn’t quite right, because it was bigger than most cats I know, and it seemed—softer somehow. I studied […]
“A unique, deftly scripted, and extraordinary novel by an author with a distinctive narrative storytelling style that will hold the readers dedicated attention from beginning to end, “Farewell My Life: Buona Notte Vita Mia” is an impressive and unreservedly recommended addition to both community and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections. One of those rare novels that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Farewell My Life: Buona Notte Vita Mia” is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).”
“Farewell My Life is a period drama in the form of a book, but the early 1920s form so much more than just a set piece to watch the lives of characters unfold. Every person in the book is masterfully shaped by the era, showing both prejudices, which would be overcome by living in the modern-day and inner strength and drive to claim what one wants that has existed throughout time. By not shying away from either, the author has made a masterpiece, one readers can easily lose themselves in. As the book sweeps on, Grace is brought from Georgetown to post-war Berlin, where she pursues her own passions to become a violinist, before being thrown into the middle of family strife she had no notion existed even the day before she became the center of it. It is an intimate epic, an image of the minutiae of lives spelled out against the vastness of family history.”
“The author…adeptly summons the era in all its manners and details with her descriptive prose…Her omniscient, third-person narrator effectively flits through the heads of various characters, offering momentary glimpses of their inner lives.”
