Gershwin’s Bess by Lisa K. Winkler follows the ascent of Anne Wiggins Brown, a gifted soprano moving from Baltimore to the intense, competitive music world of New York. Starting with her childhood performances for WWI soldiers, the narrative tracks her through the 1920s as she...

Entertaining and well-researched, A. Piper Burgi’s The Exploress and the Pillars of Eternity is a fine example of historical fiction. Set in the early nineteenth century, at a time when Egypt was just beginning to allow Europeans access to their country and its archaeological treasures,...

The Inhabited Arc by Joe Trabocco is a collection of three short stories, all standalones and each enveloped in the singular consciousness of its narrator. In Epiphany, Lydia is in a coastal house where daily life by the shore slowly awakens an inner awareness, leading...

Beneath the Basilica, the memoirs and confessions of Lucrezia Borgia were discovered in the historical fiction novel, The Lost Diary of Lucrezia Borgia (Deathbed Confessions by the Pope’s Daughter) by Johnny Teague. A devout Christian and archaeologist, Giuseppe is delighted when he is asked to...

I Wash My Hands: The ‘Autobiography’ of Pontius Pilate by P. Drew Warren is a historical novel written in the style of an autobiography from Pontius Pilate's point of view. Pontius Pilate recounts his experiences as the Roman Governor in Judea and his decision during...

Katherine Mezzacappa draws the reader deeply into late 1700’s Ireland in her impeccably researched novel, The Ballad of Mary Kearney. In a tumultuous period of social and religious unrest, we witness the story of a simple serving girl named Mary Kearney, who, against all cultural...

Anne Boleyn is off on another adventure. Having left her training at Margaret of Austria’s court, Anne is now entering the French court as one of Mary Tudor’s most trusted ladies’ maids. In Rozsa Gaston’s The Queen’s Maid, Anne, with her fluency in French, is...

Richard Robbins’ First Lady of the New World is about Felicite St. Maxent, a young woman trying to make her way in colonial New Orleans. After her husband dies young, she has to manage her life while politics and society around her are constantly evolving....

Elizabeth Kellam's Chopin’s Last Manuscript begins in 1971, when a Polish craftsman renovating Eugène Delacroix’s Paris studio discovers a hidden leather portfolio beneath the floorboards. Inside are a manuscript signed by Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin and a diary that appears to chronicle his private account of...

The Gospel of Caiaphas by Nicole Diamond Austin is a fictional telling of Joseph ben Caiaphas, who has always been infamously portrayed as presiding over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus. Austin recreates Caiaphas, from childhood in a priestly household, to his rise as the high...