Darin Strauss came up with The Queen of Tuesday by asking himself one question – what if his philandering insurance salesman grandfather, Isidore- Iz – Strauss had met actress and sitcom queen Lucille Ball at a benefit thrown by Donald Trump’s father – which they both actually attended – and started a torrid affair. Well. …
Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters is a perfectly okay slice of historical fiction that ends up getting subsumed in too dry, too technical prose. While Chiaverini tries to balance the points of view of a slew of Mary Todd Lincoln’s sisters, they often come off as rather plain of speech. Elizabeth, Frances, Mary, Ann and Emilie Todd…
I don’t think I’ve ever said anything like this before, but I’m honestly not sure I have the ability to convey how dreadful a book The Queen’s Secret is. I’ll start with some basic math: I can read a good book in a day. It took me thirty-three days to read this one. In 1939,…
Sarah Bernhardt’s life was destined to grab headlines. The first actress of international acclaim, she drew eyes and plaudits – and controversy and criticism – wherever she trod the boards. But Bernhardt’s life was also no picnic. Given to a stranger to be raised, she was the daughter of a high-class courtesan, her biological father…
In American Princess, novelist Stephanie Thornton peels back the layers of Alice Roosevelt, oldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. During her father’s presidency, which began in 1901, Alice was the media’s darling, dubbed America’s Princess by those who paid close attention to every facet of her life. Alice was a woman ahead of her time….
Marie Benedict’s The Only Woman in the Room is the story of Hedy Lamarr, a woman best known for her roles on the silver screen. Ms. Benedict looks deeper into Hedy’s life, bringing us an engrossing tale of a woman who is both brilliant and beautiful. Hedy Kieseler is a Jewish woman married to an…
Wealthy, privileged, and fiercely independent New Yorker Jennie Jerome took Victorian England by storm when she landed on its shores. As Lady Randolph Churchill, she gave birth to a man who defined the twentieth century: her son Winston. But Jennie–reared in the luxury of Gilded Age Newport and the Paris of the Second Empire–lived an…
Therese Anne Fowler follows her bestselling novel Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald with A Well Behaved Woman, an encapsulation of the life of gilded age boundary breaker Alva Vanderbilt, exploring life in the early twentieth century and the way that climbing society’s social rungs can damage a person’s closest relationships. Alva, born titled but…
In the wake of the resurgence of interest in all things Fitzgerald, Sally Koslow’s Another Side of Paradise digs into a topic that biographical fiction writers have rarely explored; Scott’s three-and-a-half year long extramarital romance with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, one that molded Graham’s later life and saw Scott through his last, afflicted years. In…
The story of Jane Seymour’s rise to the throne (and her subsequent death after bringing forth Henry VIII’s only male heir) has been well chronicled by many. Was she pushed by her ambitious family? Was she truly the docile angel she was later enshrined as? Alison Weir – well known writer of biographical fiction and…
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