Category: Biography

  • REVIEW of Heyer Society: Essays on the Literary Genius of Georgette Heyer, ed. Rachel Hyland

    REVIEW of Heyer Society: Essays on the Literary Genius of Georgette Heyer, ed. Rachel Hyland

    This collection includes 25 essays about the inimitable Georgette Heyer. Inspired by her love of Jane Austen, Heyer penned period romances of her own and ended up creating the Regency romance genre that is still widely popular today. The essays in this anthology treat on Heyer’s influences, intelligence, idiosyncracies, and immortal achievements. Some of my…

  • COVER REVEAL: Castles, Customs, and Kings, Volume 2

    COVER REVEAL: Castles, Customs, and Kings, Volume 2

    Madison Street Publishing is excited to give you a sneak peek at our new title to be released this September! I have several essays in this anthology and am excited to be in such good company with nearly 50 other historical novelists. CASTLES, CUSTOMS, AND KINGS: TRUE TALES BY ENGLISH HISTORICAL FICTION AUTHORS, Volume 2…

  • REVIEW of Defending Constantine, by Peter J. Leithart

    REVIEW of Defending Constantine, by Peter J. Leithart

    The Emperor Constantine is one of those people who could very ably defend himself while alive, but now, having the misfortune of being dead, has become a whipping boy for church historians and theologians alike. In his book Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom, Peter Leithart attempts to wipe…

  • REVIEW of Up from Slavery, by Booker T. Washington

    Born a slave in 1856, Booker T. Washington was only a child when the American Civil War commenced. After the war ended and the slaves were emancipated, young Booker moved to West Virginia with his mother, brother, and step-father. The newly freed slaves had to work hard to support themselves, and Booker (not even a…

  • REVIEW of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs

    As my book club presses on with autobiographies in a chronological fashion, we’ve made our way to the American Civil War. The first of two slave narratives that we are reading is Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs. Next month we’ll be reading The Life of Frederick Douglass. I won’t…

  • REVIEW of Jane Austen, by Peter Leithart

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen has been all the rage for quite some time. Her books have surged in popularity, and many “continuations” or copy-cat novels have surfaced trying to imitate the esteemed Austen canon. The speculation regarding Jane Austen’s life has ranged as far afield as the interpretations of her…

  • REVIEW of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

    Sometimes when my blog sits forlorn for a three week span, it means that I haven’t been reading much and, consequently, have nothing to write about. Other times it means that I’ve been reading too much and I am more interested in cracking open my next book than in writing reviews of old news. Today’s…

  • REVIEW of The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

    One of the lovely things about seventeenth century books is that once you’ve read the title you really know what the whole book is about. The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is one of these explanatory titles. Mary was a colonial American woman who was seized from her home…