Judith Starkston has spent too much time exploring the remains of the ancient worlds of the Greeks and Hittites. Their myths and clashes inspire her fiction and open gates to magical realms. She has degrees in Classics from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Cornell. She loves myths and telling stories, and her novels imbue fantasy with the richness of ancient worlds. The first book in her Trojan Threads Series, Hand of Fire was a semi-finalist for the M.M. Bennett’s Award for Historical Fiction. Priestess of Ishana, the first in her historical fantasy Tesha series, won the San Diego State University Conference Choice Award. Judith is represented by Richard Curtis.
Susan Spann’s Claws of the Cat takes us to Japan during the period of samurais and limited contact with the West. Her two “sleuths” are a most unlikely pair. Hiro, a shinobi assassin (think ninjas for the most part), is living undercover as the protector of Father Mateo, a Jesuit priest who has come to Japan to make converts. From this intriguing partnership Spann spins a mystery that won’t let go of you.
Baltakmens has created an imaginary, Dickensian city with a dark prison looming on a hill at the top of this grim, fairy tale-like world.
Upcoming July meeting and news of the Arizona Historical Novel Society
Interview and book giveaway with MJ Rose, author of Seduction, a novel about Victor Hugo and the modern mythologist and perfumer Jac L’Etoile.
M.J. Rose’s Seduction moves between the haunted world of Victor Hugo in 1855 on the Isle of Jersey after the death of his daughter and the equally problematic life of Rose’s modern heroine, Jac L’Etoile, a mythologist and innately talented perfumer with a tragic past.
About 40 people interested in historical fiction gathered at my house on June 8th to inaugurate the Arizona chapter of the Historical Novel Society. Our next meeting will be on July 27th at 4:00.
Latest in the Maggie Hope series, this WWII thriller takes Maggie behind enemy lines into Germany where her past and the Nazis both have it out for her.
Interview with Kris Waldherr author, illustrator and featured speaker at the 2013 Historical Novel Society Conference in June.
Interview with author and featured speaker at the upcoming Historical Novel Society Conference in June.
Interview with Mitchell Kaplan, author of By Fire, By Water and a featured speaker at the 2013 Historical Novel Society Conference June 21-23 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
