Ask the Author: Allison Pataki
Answered Questions (26)
Allison Pataki
Hi Nancy, thank you so much for your question. No, I have not read Annemarie Selinko’s novel because it is a work of fiction, and I did not want to take the risk that another writer’s fictional imagining of Desiree’s life might affect my own fictional writing — even if only subconsciously. For that reason I had to stick to a diet of strictly nonfiction and biographical sources. But I have heard such wonderful things about the book. It is a classic and a favorite of so many. I’m thrilled that you are such an aficionada of Desiree Clary Bernadotte!
Allison Pataki
Hi Susan, thank you so much for your question. No, I did not read Annemarie Selinko’s novel because it is a work of fiction, and I did not want to take the risk that another writer’s fictional imagining of Desiree’s life might affect my own fictional writing — even if only subconsciously. For that reason I had to stick to a diet of strictly nonfiction and biographical sources. But I have heard such wonderful things about the book. It is a classic and a favorite of so many.
Allison Pataki
Oh wow, one of my favorite questions to ponder! Thank you for asking. Can I offer two answers? Realistically, I could probably give you ten....
1. Perhaps I would travel to King Henry VIII's court in Tudor England. I would be fascinated to watch all of the political and personal intrigue in England at that time. I would, however, have to work very hard to keep my head...
2. The second place might be the New York of Edith Wharton's time. What a fascinating period as social norms and conventions were shifting. Wharton draws such complex and beautiful character portraits.
1. Perhaps I would travel to King Henry VIII's court in Tudor England. I would be fascinated to watch all of the political and personal intrigue in England at that time. I would, however, have to work very hard to keep my head...
2. The second place might be the New York of Edith Wharton's time. What a fascinating period as social norms and conventions were shifting. Wharton draws such complex and beautiful character portraits.
Allison Pataki
Hi Patty,
SO great to hear from you! And thank you for reading and then reaching out!
Yes, as you saw, WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS comes out in early July - so, just a few weeks now. Gulp!
I truly hope you will enjoy reading and immersing yourself into the period of the French Revolution -- one of the most dramatic and turbulent eras in modern European history.
You'll see as you are reading why we were inspired to dive into this moment in time -- history provides us with all of the drama and intrigue that we, as historical fiction authors, could ever hope for.
Happy reading, and all the best. Thank you again for being in touch!
Best,
Allison
SO great to hear from you! And thank you for reading and then reaching out!
Yes, as you saw, WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS comes out in early July - so, just a few weeks now. Gulp!
I truly hope you will enjoy reading and immersing yourself into the period of the French Revolution -- one of the most dramatic and turbulent eras in modern European history.
You'll see as you are reading why we were inspired to dive into this moment in time -- history provides us with all of the drama and intrigue that we, as historical fiction authors, could ever hope for.
Happy reading, and all the best. Thank you again for being in touch!
Best,
Allison
Allison Pataki
Hi Jen,
So wonderful to hear from you! I am THRILLED that you enjoyed WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS. And thank you for reading and reaching out!
Owen (my co-author on WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS -- and my brother) and I have been interested in that time period of the French Revolution going back to our early childhoods. Our maternal grandmother is 100% French and so we have family over there and have always felt very connected to the history of France.
In our author note at the back of the book, Owen and I were sure to include many of the book titles and films that first inspired us and then fueled us forward as we were pursuing the researching process. Check any of those out to learn more about this fascinating time period --perhaps the most dramatic period in modern European history!
Thanks again for reading :)
So wonderful to hear from you! I am THRILLED that you enjoyed WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS. And thank you for reading and reaching out!
Owen (my co-author on WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS -- and my brother) and I have been interested in that time period of the French Revolution going back to our early childhoods. Our maternal grandmother is 100% French and so we have family over there and have always felt very connected to the history of France.
In our author note at the back of the book, Owen and I were sure to include many of the book titles and films that first inspired us and then fueled us forward as we were pursuing the researching process. Check any of those out to learn more about this fascinating time period --perhaps the most dramatic period in modern European history!
Thanks again for reading :)
Allison Pataki
Ah, the best question of all! I'm excited about so many books. Right now the books on my list are:
1. The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
2. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
3. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
And of course I have to mention WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS -- my latest book -- which comes out on July 11, this summer!
1. The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
2. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
3. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
And of course I have to mention WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS -- my latest book -- which comes out on July 11, this summer!
Allison Pataki
Hi Nicole,
Thank you so much for your question, and for your interest in "Where the Light Falls!"
While I cannot know what your standards and expectations are in terms of these young readers, my inclination is that yes, the book is appropriate for teens and young adults. Of course, with the historical backdrop being the French Revolution, there is some macabre and grisly stuff happening in the world of the novel, as in fact was the case in the actual time period of the French Revolution. There are scenes in which the guillotine plays a role, and there are battle scenes that are true to the history of the time, etc. But there is nothing gratuitous or explicit in terms of violence or mature content. I would put it on par with Les Miserables or Juliet Gray's "Marie Antoinette" series in terms of content. Have you read my first novel, "The Traitor's Wife?" I would say it is at about that same level in terms of content.
Ultimately, it's a subjective matter and only you can really decide that. I'll make a suggestion: perhaps the best thing might be for you to read it first, just to make sure that you are comfortable before passing it along.
I firmly believe that historical fiction is wonderful for young readers, and indeed readers of all ages, to show that history need not be boring, and to kindle a passion for history that might not otherwise be stoked by a textbook!
Best wishes,
Allison
Thank you so much for your question, and for your interest in "Where the Light Falls!"
While I cannot know what your standards and expectations are in terms of these young readers, my inclination is that yes, the book is appropriate for teens and young adults. Of course, with the historical backdrop being the French Revolution, there is some macabre and grisly stuff happening in the world of the novel, as in fact was the case in the actual time period of the French Revolution. There are scenes in which the guillotine plays a role, and there are battle scenes that are true to the history of the time, etc. But there is nothing gratuitous or explicit in terms of violence or mature content. I would put it on par with Les Miserables or Juliet Gray's "Marie Antoinette" series in terms of content. Have you read my first novel, "The Traitor's Wife?" I would say it is at about that same level in terms of content.
Ultimately, it's a subjective matter and only you can really decide that. I'll make a suggestion: perhaps the best thing might be for you to read it first, just to make sure that you are comfortable before passing it along.
I firmly believe that historical fiction is wonderful for young readers, and indeed readers of all ages, to show that history need not be boring, and to kindle a passion for history that might not otherwise be stoked by a textbook!
Best wishes,
Allison
Allison Pataki
What a GREAT question! I don't even know how to begin to answer. Can I give you five??
1. Andras & Klara, The Invisible Bridge
2. Elizabeth & Darcy, Pride & Prejudice
3. Beatrice & Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing
4. Gatsby & Daisy, The Great Gatsby
5. Jane and Rochester, Jane Eyre
1. Andras & Klara, The Invisible Bridge
2. Elizabeth & Darcy, Pride & Prejudice
3. Beatrice & Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing
4. Gatsby & Daisy, The Great Gatsby
5. Jane and Rochester, Jane Eyre
Allison Pataki
I’m very excited to now answer that question for you, twice. Yes, twice, because I have just signed offers on my next two books with Random House, the publishers who did such a fabulous job bringing SISI: EMPRESS ON HER OWN into the world! I couldn’t be more thrilled to share the news here, first, with all of you.
First Up
A few years ago, my younger brother, Owen, and I were talking late one night in the living room of our parents’ home. Owen was at that time an Army officer recently graduated from Cornell and preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. I was a newly published author launching a career unearthing salacious stories of forgotten women from the historical record. We are a pair of unapologetic history dorks and so, not surprisingly, our conversation turned to history.
Owen told me about a plot line that had been occupying his imagination for years. He described a small group of fictional characters and their stories that unfolded during the French Revolution. Owen has always adored history—though three years my junior, he is often my educator and go-to history expert. Owen has also always been an avid student of film, and his plan was to finish his commitment in the Army and go to film school, where he’d learn to make movies of his own.
I listened that night, rapt, before eventually saying: “Owen, this is a book. This is a great book.”
Owen replied, “Well, I see it as a film.”
So I said, “How about we do both?”
And so it began.
That night we started riffing on these characters and this moment in history and its nascent plot. It was a seamless creative collaboration, the best kind of partnership. Over the next few years, while Owen was serving in the Army and I was launching my first three novels, we kept returning to this project. We would have writing sessions over the phone and brainstorming sessions over email. We both undertook with gusto our own deep dives into the research. There were times we would both blurt out an idea at the same time and then look at one another perplexed as to how one of us had read the other’s mind.
We say that Owen laid out the bones of this story and then I built the flesh on top of it. It’s a street-level view of the French Revolution like you haven’t yet seen in historical fiction. Through the eyes of our historically-inspired lead characters, we enter the blood-stained streets of Paris during the Reign of Terror and traverse this epic time period through to the Napoleonic conquests of Egypt and beyond. With a cast of characters including fabled historical fixtures such as King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Maximilien Robespierre, Napoleon, Alexandre Dumas, and others, history was never this scary or entertaining.
Fast forward to this year. I launched my most recent book, SISI, in March and Owen completed film school in London in August. We shopped our completed manuscript to Random House and, to our total elation, they loved it. We will be publishing ANGELS OF THE GUILLOTINE together in 2017. Stay tuned for the official publisher’s announcement and the snazzy synopsis. We couldn’t be more excited about this project. We both love the time period and this ensemble of gritty, complex, sympathetic characters. The French Revolution is a new time period for me to tackle via fiction, and the experience of co-authoring will be a new and exciting challenge as well.
And Also…
I mentioned that this is a two-book deal. My second book will also be a departure from my wheelhouse, in the genre of nonfiction memoir.
As many of you know, my husband Dave suffered a near fatal bithalamic stroke last June. He turned to me on an airplane, as we were flying to our “babymoon,” and told me he couldn’t see anything out of his right eye. A few minutes later, Dave lost consciousness. When that happened, the life we had planned for—baby on the way, Dave’s medical fellowship upcoming, my life as an author moving full steam ahead—went up in flames.
When Dave woke up after the stroke, aged 30, seemingly strong and outwardly intact, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. I lost the Dave I knew and loved when he lost consciousness on that plane. So too did I lose the life that I thought I knew, the future I had planned for, and the version of myself who had boarded the plane.
The cruelest irony of the whole situation was that, while I was going through something as devastating as that experience was, my husband, my partner, was the one person to whom I most wanted to talk. Dave, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world, was the person to whom I most needed to talk. But he wasn’t there. At least, not as himself.
So, I decided to write to him. I opened up my laptop and began typing, saving the word document as “DearDave.doc,” because that was how it began. I’d write it all down so that, if Dave ever came back to me, we could some day experience it together. He could know what he went through, what we went through, and we could, hopefully, heal together.
Also at that time, I was receiving a deluge of mail. People were sending prayers and letters and cards and emails and hand-written notes. Memories of Dave, messages of inspiration and hope, notes about the past and notes about the future. I collected every one of these notes and put them all in a big leather bound book that I called “Dave’s Book of Fan Mail.” Just as I took such strength from these words from loved ones, I hoped that these letters would help to trigger something in Dave as well. I relied on these words to help bring him out of the state of amnesia and to give him (and me) hope in the many long hours of hard work that lay before us.
Seven months later, in January, it was the depth of winter in Chicago. It was an incredibly difficult time for me and Dave and our little family. No longer in the initial aftermath of Dave’s acute health crisis, with all of the accompanying love and support and hope and adrenaline, we were spent. It was hard not to worry that Dave’s lingering deficits might in fact be here to stay, that they were predictive of where things might settle out. Perhaps we had gotten all the recovery we could expect. Perhaps we had reached the dreaded plateau. No one could tell us, because no one knew. By that time, we had a newborn. I had a book launch coming up. Those winter days were filled with shuttling to rehab and haggling with insurance companies and visiting doctors and paying bills. I was exhausted. When people marveled at how completely I had shed the baby weight I wanted to respond: it’s amazing what stress will do for the waistline.
A wise friend gave me some very good advice in that moment: go back and reread what you wrote right after the stroke. I was too close to the situation. Progress was now coming in hard-fought inches, as opposed to leaps, and I could no longer see it. But when I went back and reread about the days when Dave couldn’t stand up or hold a fork or tell me the date or even tell me that we were having a baby girl, I saw just how far we had come. There had been such cause for hope from the very beginning, and I had to force myself to keep that hope alive.
I began doing a sort of “written inventory.” I once again took to the written word to process just where we had come from, where we were currently, and where we still longed to go. I catalogued all of the notes to Dave and my letters and journal entries. I began journaling once more. It became my own personal therapy. It was a project that I hoped to someday share with Dave and our daughter.
Somewhere along the way, it turned into something bigger.
Part of how I coped with the lowest moments of this recovery was by reading a lot of memoir, a genre on which I had not previously focused much time or interest. That winter, I found myself drawing such strength from reading other people’s stories, taking inspiration from the fact that so many others had survived so many other difficult experiences. If they could do it, I could do it. We would do it.
In May I wrote a piece with Dave for The New York Times about our experience with the stroke and its rehabilitation. The response from readers was overwhelming. I received emails and letters that brought tears of many types to my eyes. That piece, combined with this writing project I’ve been working on over the past year, has turned into a full and complete memoir of our own story.
I never intended to write about this experience in any public way. As an author, I’d always thought of writing as the place where I found my joy. Writing was where I went to play. Writing required space and time and freedom, none of which I had after the stroke.
And yet, like all of my books so far, this project took me by surprise and wasn’t really a choice. The story grew over the course of the year following Dave’s stroke, but it became a story so much larger than simply the story of Dave’s stroke. Perhaps best of all, by the time I was wrapping up the project, Dave was in a position to jump in and help write the ending. I hope that in some way by sharing this we will be liberating the story, liberating Dave and me from this experience, and hopefully empowering others in the process.
It just might be the greatest challenge of my professional life, writing and sharing this book, but it might also have the power to do the most good. Writing, after all, is ultimately about connecting, isn’t it? It’s the writer connecting to what lies within, clamoring for emancipation. It’s the writer connecting with the reader, a sacred and intimate conversation. It’s the reader connecting with the truths and emotions that she has always known, perhaps without even realizing it. It’s one reader connecting to another reader, or perhaps simply to one’s self.
If this story can do that, if this book can connect to even one person, can provide any inspiration, any comfort, even just a single spear of sunlight from what began as a moment of total darkness, then it will be worth it.
First Up
A few years ago, my younger brother, Owen, and I were talking late one night in the living room of our parents’ home. Owen was at that time an Army officer recently graduated from Cornell and preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. I was a newly published author launching a career unearthing salacious stories of forgotten women from the historical record. We are a pair of unapologetic history dorks and so, not surprisingly, our conversation turned to history.
Owen told me about a plot line that had been occupying his imagination for years. He described a small group of fictional characters and their stories that unfolded during the French Revolution. Owen has always adored history—though three years my junior, he is often my educator and go-to history expert. Owen has also always been an avid student of film, and his plan was to finish his commitment in the Army and go to film school, where he’d learn to make movies of his own.
I listened that night, rapt, before eventually saying: “Owen, this is a book. This is a great book.”
Owen replied, “Well, I see it as a film.”
So I said, “How about we do both?”
And so it began.
That night we started riffing on these characters and this moment in history and its nascent plot. It was a seamless creative collaboration, the best kind of partnership. Over the next few years, while Owen was serving in the Army and I was launching my first three novels, we kept returning to this project. We would have writing sessions over the phone and brainstorming sessions over email. We both undertook with gusto our own deep dives into the research. There were times we would both blurt out an idea at the same time and then look at one another perplexed as to how one of us had read the other’s mind.
We say that Owen laid out the bones of this story and then I built the flesh on top of it. It’s a street-level view of the French Revolution like you haven’t yet seen in historical fiction. Through the eyes of our historically-inspired lead characters, we enter the blood-stained streets of Paris during the Reign of Terror and traverse this epic time period through to the Napoleonic conquests of Egypt and beyond. With a cast of characters including fabled historical fixtures such as King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Maximilien Robespierre, Napoleon, Alexandre Dumas, and others, history was never this scary or entertaining.
Fast forward to this year. I launched my most recent book, SISI, in March and Owen completed film school in London in August. We shopped our completed manuscript to Random House and, to our total elation, they loved it. We will be publishing ANGELS OF THE GUILLOTINE together in 2017. Stay tuned for the official publisher’s announcement and the snazzy synopsis. We couldn’t be more excited about this project. We both love the time period and this ensemble of gritty, complex, sympathetic characters. The French Revolution is a new time period for me to tackle via fiction, and the experience of co-authoring will be a new and exciting challenge as well.
And Also…
I mentioned that this is a two-book deal. My second book will also be a departure from my wheelhouse, in the genre of nonfiction memoir.
As many of you know, my husband Dave suffered a near fatal bithalamic stroke last June. He turned to me on an airplane, as we were flying to our “babymoon,” and told me he couldn’t see anything out of his right eye. A few minutes later, Dave lost consciousness. When that happened, the life we had planned for—baby on the way, Dave’s medical fellowship upcoming, my life as an author moving full steam ahead—went up in flames.
When Dave woke up after the stroke, aged 30, seemingly strong and outwardly intact, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. I lost the Dave I knew and loved when he lost consciousness on that plane. So too did I lose the life that I thought I knew, the future I had planned for, and the version of myself who had boarded the plane.
The cruelest irony of the whole situation was that, while I was going through something as devastating as that experience was, my husband, my partner, was the one person to whom I most wanted to talk. Dave, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world, was the person to whom I most needed to talk. But he wasn’t there. At least, not as himself.
So, I decided to write to him. I opened up my laptop and began typing, saving the word document as “DearDave.doc,” because that was how it began. I’d write it all down so that, if Dave ever came back to me, we could some day experience it together. He could know what he went through, what we went through, and we could, hopefully, heal together.
Also at that time, I was receiving a deluge of mail. People were sending prayers and letters and cards and emails and hand-written notes. Memories of Dave, messages of inspiration and hope, notes about the past and notes about the future. I collected every one of these notes and put them all in a big leather bound book that I called “Dave’s Book of Fan Mail.” Just as I took such strength from these words from loved ones, I hoped that these letters would help to trigger something in Dave as well. I relied on these words to help bring him out of the state of amnesia and to give him (and me) hope in the many long hours of hard work that lay before us.
Seven months later, in January, it was the depth of winter in Chicago. It was an incredibly difficult time for me and Dave and our little family. No longer in the initial aftermath of Dave’s acute health crisis, with all of the accompanying love and support and hope and adrenaline, we were spent. It was hard not to worry that Dave’s lingering deficits might in fact be here to stay, that they were predictive of where things might settle out. Perhaps we had gotten all the recovery we could expect. Perhaps we had reached the dreaded plateau. No one could tell us, because no one knew. By that time, we had a newborn. I had a book launch coming up. Those winter days were filled with shuttling to rehab and haggling with insurance companies and visiting doctors and paying bills. I was exhausted. When people marveled at how completely I had shed the baby weight I wanted to respond: it’s amazing what stress will do for the waistline.
A wise friend gave me some very good advice in that moment: go back and reread what you wrote right after the stroke. I was too close to the situation. Progress was now coming in hard-fought inches, as opposed to leaps, and I could no longer see it. But when I went back and reread about the days when Dave couldn’t stand up or hold a fork or tell me the date or even tell me that we were having a baby girl, I saw just how far we had come. There had been such cause for hope from the very beginning, and I had to force myself to keep that hope alive.
I began doing a sort of “written inventory.” I once again took to the written word to process just where we had come from, where we were currently, and where we still longed to go. I catalogued all of the notes to Dave and my letters and journal entries. I began journaling once more. It became my own personal therapy. It was a project that I hoped to someday share with Dave and our daughter.
Somewhere along the way, it turned into something bigger.
Part of how I coped with the lowest moments of this recovery was by reading a lot of memoir, a genre on which I had not previously focused much time or interest. That winter, I found myself drawing such strength from reading other people’s stories, taking inspiration from the fact that so many others had survived so many other difficult experiences. If they could do it, I could do it. We would do it.
In May I wrote a piece with Dave for The New York Times about our experience with the stroke and its rehabilitation. The response from readers was overwhelming. I received emails and letters that brought tears of many types to my eyes. That piece, combined with this writing project I’ve been working on over the past year, has turned into a full and complete memoir of our own story.
I never intended to write about this experience in any public way. As an author, I’d always thought of writing as the place where I found my joy. Writing was where I went to play. Writing required space and time and freedom, none of which I had after the stroke.
And yet, like all of my books so far, this project took me by surprise and wasn’t really a choice. The story grew over the course of the year following Dave’s stroke, but it became a story so much larger than simply the story of Dave’s stroke. Perhaps best of all, by the time I was wrapping up the project, Dave was in a position to jump in and help write the ending. I hope that in some way by sharing this we will be liberating the story, liberating Dave and me from this experience, and hopefully empowering others in the process.
It just might be the greatest challenge of my professional life, writing and sharing this book, but it might also have the power to do the most good. Writing, after all, is ultimately about connecting, isn’t it? It’s the writer connecting to what lies within, clamoring for emancipation. It’s the writer connecting with the reader, a sacred and intimate conversation. It’s the reader connecting with the truths and emotions that she has always known, perhaps without even realizing it. It’s one reader connecting to another reader, or perhaps simply to one’s self.
If this story can do that, if this book can connect to even one person, can provide any inspiration, any comfort, even just a single spear of sunlight from what began as a moment of total darkness, then it will be worth it.
Allison Pataki
Hi Diane,
How fun for you and your husband, that sounds like a superb trip! Indeed, Sisi's legacy is so incredibly layered and complex.
Currently I do not have plans to write a novel about Ludwig. Here is what I'm working on :) : http://allisonpataki.com/next-up/
Best,
Allison
How fun for you and your husband, that sounds like a superb trip! Indeed, Sisi's legacy is so incredibly layered and complex.
Currently I do not have plans to write a novel about Ludwig. Here is what I'm working on :) : http://allisonpataki.com/next-up/
Best,
Allison
Allison Pataki
Beth, how can I thank you enough?
This is such a wonderful message and I really appreciate it-- and I'm so thrilled that the books resonated with you! To answer your question, yes, we are in the process of adapting both SISI books to a screenplay for a screen version! Here is the full announcement: http://allisonpataki.com/allison-pata...
All my best,
Allison
This is such a wonderful message and I really appreciate it-- and I'm so thrilled that the books resonated with you! To answer your question, yes, we are in the process of adapting both SISI books to a screenplay for a screen version! Here is the full announcement: http://allisonpataki.com/allison-pata...
All my best,
Allison
Allison Pataki
Thank you so much, Julie!
I really appreciate your kind words, and I'm so thrilled that you enjoyed the Sisi books.
Indeed, Sisi was many things; she was a complex, sympathetic, inspiring, infuriating and flawed figure. I think she emerges as a heroine and protagonist with whom we can relate and identify, not in spite of her flaws, but in large part because of them. In an era when Habsburg kings and queens were believed to rule with "divine right," Sisi was always glaringly aware of her imperfections. Ultimately, I believe that is why people responded to her (and continue to respond to her to this day) so passionately.
Would Sisi and Franz Joseph have found happiness together? That's hard to say. Perhaps with age and wisdom, Sisi's restlessness might have abated a bit and they might have found some measure of peace or companionship. Theirs was a life to which not many others could relate, so they certainly would have shared that. And yet, "peace" and "contentment" were not particularly accessible states of being for our restless Sisi!
Because of the grisly fate that befell their family, we will not know. It's another tragic aspect to this very moving and poignant human story.
Thanks --
Allison
I really appreciate your kind words, and I'm so thrilled that you enjoyed the Sisi books.
Indeed, Sisi was many things; she was a complex, sympathetic, inspiring, infuriating and flawed figure. I think she emerges as a heroine and protagonist with whom we can relate and identify, not in spite of her flaws, but in large part because of them. In an era when Habsburg kings and queens were believed to rule with "divine right," Sisi was always glaringly aware of her imperfections. Ultimately, I believe that is why people responded to her (and continue to respond to her to this day) so passionately.
Would Sisi and Franz Joseph have found happiness together? That's hard to say. Perhaps with age and wisdom, Sisi's restlessness might have abated a bit and they might have found some measure of peace or companionship. Theirs was a life to which not many others could relate, so they certainly would have shared that. And yet, "peace" and "contentment" were not particularly accessible states of being for our restless Sisi!
Because of the grisly fate that befell their family, we will not know. It's another tragic aspect to this very moving and poignant human story.
Thanks --
Allison
Allison Pataki
Jó napot!
Thank you for reading.
All best,
Allison
Thank you for reading.
All best,
Allison
Allison Pataki
Hi Antoinette! So wonderful to hear from you. A fortuitous coincidence -- in answer to your second question, I might have to say the court of Louis XVI to meet the king and his very own Antoinette, Marie Antoinette! I would be fascinated to see the splendor and the decay from the inside of Versailles. I would, however, want to be sure to be out of there ahead of July 14, 1789!
My advice for aspiring writers would be to write, write, write. So many people tell me that they have a story in mind that they wish to write, to which I always say: do it! Put pen to paper. Begin. Create. Explore. Bring that story to life. The only way we can improve is by doing. So, do it today! Clear some time and have fun with the process. Be forgiving of yourself along the way as you grow and evolve in your craft.
My advice for aspiring writers would be to write, write, write. So many people tell me that they have a story in mind that they wish to write, to which I always say: do it! Put pen to paper. Begin. Create. Explore. Bring that story to life. The only way we can improve is by doing. So, do it today! Clear some time and have fun with the process. Be forgiving of yourself along the way as you grow and evolve in your craft.
Allison Pataki
Hi Caroline! Great to hear from you, and I'm sorry about the confusion. Unfortunately I am not in charge of these giveaways and do not oversee them, so I would contact whomever it was who initially put out the word on the giveaway itself. I know that my publisher (Random House) runs them in conjunction with GoodReads. Sorry I can't be more help!
Allison Pataki
Thank you so much, Barbara! I cannot tell you how much it means to me to hear this. I am currently in the process of exploring a new character (based in history) about whom I am wildly excited. More news to come soon on that front :) In the meantime, I keep in touch with readers and share my latest news on AllisonPataki.com -- there you will see the option to sign up for my newsletter. Look forward to keeping in touch!
Allison Pataki
Hi Kim, thank you so much for your question regarding Crown Prince Rudolf and Mary Vetsera. What a tragic facet of the Habsburg family thread. I spent so much time wondering about Crown Prince Rudolf and pondering the various ways in which history might have unfolded differently, had his fate been different. In my novel SISI, I deal directly with your question. I look forward to hearing what you think.
Allison Pataki
Hi Diane, so great to hear from you!
Two historical moments I came across very early in my research were:
1. The day that Benedict Arnold's treason is uncovered: This occurs while George Washington and Alexander Hamilton are at the home of Benedict and Peggy Shippen Arnold. Arnold hears of Andre's arrest and flees, leaving his wife to serve as hostess (and distraction) to Washington and his men so that he can make it safely to the British warship Vulture. Washington, for the first portion of the visit, has a perfectly pleasant time, still unaware that Arnold has betrayed them all (he thinks Arnold is over at West Point preparing a welcome reception for the Commander in Chief). Washington even jokes while at the home that half his men are in love with the famously beautiful Mrs. Arnold. When Washington does eventually receive word of Andre's arrest and realizes that Arnold has fled as the treasonous conspirator, Peggy does in fact go on to have an hysterical fit, during which time she tears at her hair and rips her gown and is carried to bed by the very concerned patriot heroes (as I portray it in the novel). They subsequently nurse Peggy back to health, remain by her bedside, etc, thinking (mistakenly) that poor Peggy is the victim of Arnold's treason. Of course we know that this is not the case, and that Peggy was integrally involved in the plot! Central to it, in fact! But Peggy put on quite a show, convincing them of her total innocence. Both Hamilton and Washington recorded in their diaries the details of this day, and their pity for the poor and beautiful and sweet Mrs. Arnold. So, learning about this scene really got my wheels turning. I thought to myself...hmmm...this is a woman capable of surviving! This is a very dramatic scene--it felt almost Shakespearean to me. So, I decided to begin the novel on this day, and then jump back in time to work our way up to this climactic moment.
2. The second historical moment I came across was the scene of the Meshianza Masquerade Ball in Philadelphia. When Peggy is blocked from attending the Turkish-themed dance on the arm of her love, Major John Andre, by her concerned parents and their Quaker friends, she devolves into a tantrum worthy of the most salacious reality television show. She was a smitten teenage girl being thwarted by her parents, and she won't have it! You see this especially dramatic and delicious moment in "The Traitor's Wife," as well.
And then there were so many other historic details along the way to help me fill out the character of the charming, intelligent, cunning, volatile Peggy Shippen Arnold. She's been described by historians as highly educated and intelligent, incredibly charming, moody, "flatteringly flirtatious" (that was one of my favorites), and so on. I read about how Peggy was the belle of Philadelphia society with scores of suitors at her feet. I read about how quickly and irrevocably Arnold, a seasoned veteran and patriot hero, fell for her. How he wooed her with all of the extravagance and abandon of the most enamored of pursuants. How Peggy turned down his first suit for marriage because he walked with a limp, a rejection which then prompted the wounded war hero to rehabilitate his leg and correct his limp. I could go on and on, there were just so many fun and intriguing and hard-to-believe details (which I included in the novel!).
Ruminating on these scenes and these historical morsels, Peggy's character really took shape for me. And then, take into account the fact that this was a teenage girl who mingled first with the most desirable British officer in town (John Andre) and then the high commander of the Patriot army in Philadelphia (Benedict Arnold). This was a young lady who stood at the center of America's most notorious act of treason, plotting as she did with men twice her age in a conspiracy where the stakes were no less high than the entire outcome of the American Revolution! I couldn't help but think -- this was a powerful, capable, cunning woman. And it was an incredibly fascinating experience to draw her fictional portrait!
Two historical moments I came across very early in my research were:
1. The day that Benedict Arnold's treason is uncovered: This occurs while George Washington and Alexander Hamilton are at the home of Benedict and Peggy Shippen Arnold. Arnold hears of Andre's arrest and flees, leaving his wife to serve as hostess (and distraction) to Washington and his men so that he can make it safely to the British warship Vulture. Washington, for the first portion of the visit, has a perfectly pleasant time, still unaware that Arnold has betrayed them all (he thinks Arnold is over at West Point preparing a welcome reception for the Commander in Chief). Washington even jokes while at the home that half his men are in love with the famously beautiful Mrs. Arnold. When Washington does eventually receive word of Andre's arrest and realizes that Arnold has fled as the treasonous conspirator, Peggy does in fact go on to have an hysterical fit, during which time she tears at her hair and rips her gown and is carried to bed by the very concerned patriot heroes (as I portray it in the novel). They subsequently nurse Peggy back to health, remain by her bedside, etc, thinking (mistakenly) that poor Peggy is the victim of Arnold's treason. Of course we know that this is not the case, and that Peggy was integrally involved in the plot! Central to it, in fact! But Peggy put on quite a show, convincing them of her total innocence. Both Hamilton and Washington recorded in their diaries the details of this day, and their pity for the poor and beautiful and sweet Mrs. Arnold. So, learning about this scene really got my wheels turning. I thought to myself...hmmm...this is a woman capable of surviving! This is a very dramatic scene--it felt almost Shakespearean to me. So, I decided to begin the novel on this day, and then jump back in time to work our way up to this climactic moment.
2. The second historical moment I came across was the scene of the Meshianza Masquerade Ball in Philadelphia. When Peggy is blocked from attending the Turkish-themed dance on the arm of her love, Major John Andre, by her concerned parents and their Quaker friends, she devolves into a tantrum worthy of the most salacious reality television show. She was a smitten teenage girl being thwarted by her parents, and she won't have it! You see this especially dramatic and delicious moment in "The Traitor's Wife," as well.
And then there were so many other historic details along the way to help me fill out the character of the charming, intelligent, cunning, volatile Peggy Shippen Arnold. She's been described by historians as highly educated and intelligent, incredibly charming, moody, "flatteringly flirtatious" (that was one of my favorites), and so on. I read about how Peggy was the belle of Philadelphia society with scores of suitors at her feet. I read about how quickly and irrevocably Arnold, a seasoned veteran and patriot hero, fell for her. How he wooed her with all of the extravagance and abandon of the most enamored of pursuants. How Peggy turned down his first suit for marriage because he walked with a limp, a rejection which then prompted the wounded war hero to rehabilitate his leg and correct his limp. I could go on and on, there were just so many fun and intriguing and hard-to-believe details (which I included in the novel!).
Ruminating on these scenes and these historical morsels, Peggy's character really took shape for me. And then, take into account the fact that this was a teenage girl who mingled first with the most desirable British officer in town (John Andre) and then the high commander of the Patriot army in Philadelphia (Benedict Arnold). This was a young lady who stood at the center of America's most notorious act of treason, plotting as she did with men twice her age in a conspiracy where the stakes were no less high than the entire outcome of the American Revolution! I couldn't help but think -- this was a powerful, capable, cunning woman. And it was an incredibly fascinating experience to draw her fictional portrait!
Allison Pataki
Hi Amanda! Thank you so much, I am so thrilled to hear that you enjoyed "The Accidental Empress."
You read my mind, apparently, because I JUST made an announcement that answers your exact question. Hot off the presses, here you go!
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
You read my mind, apparently, because I JUST made an announcement that answers your exact question. Hot off the presses, here you go!
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
Allison Pataki
Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it, and enjoyed Clara Bell as the narrator.
Clara’s perspective allowed 'The Traitor's Wife' to be a more well-rounded story. The novel would have been entirely different had I written it from Peggy’s point of view—both for the reader, and also for me as the writer.
Writing through Clara’s eyes allowed me to interject feelings like hope, optimism, insecurity, and idealism into the novel. All of the feelings that one might have felt as they witnessed a new nation’s fight for independence. Clara and Caleb are the consummate idealists—they completely believe in what the fight for American freedom would have been at its best. They believe in the new country, and in George Washington, and in the futures they see as possible. And they, like the new country, are young and naïve and incredibly vulnerable to forces that seem more powerful than they are.
Written from Peggy’s point of view, the book would have been a much more tense, much more uncomfortable experience, I think. With Clara as the protagonist, the reader can be introduced to Peggy, just as Clara is. The reader can be seduced by Peggy, but also repulsed by her. I hope that Peggy is the woman that you love to hate. Seeing it through Clara’s eyes, the reader has a front-row view to the scheming and the double-dealing (which can be really fun to witness), but also enjoy a refreshing dose of sincerity and guilelessness. Peggy is anything but guileless!
Clara’s perspective allowed 'The Traitor's Wife' to be a more well-rounded story. The novel would have been entirely different had I written it from Peggy’s point of view—both for the reader, and also for me as the writer.
Writing through Clara’s eyes allowed me to interject feelings like hope, optimism, insecurity, and idealism into the novel. All of the feelings that one might have felt as they witnessed a new nation’s fight for independence. Clara and Caleb are the consummate idealists—they completely believe in what the fight for American freedom would have been at its best. They believe in the new country, and in George Washington, and in the futures they see as possible. And they, like the new country, are young and naïve and incredibly vulnerable to forces that seem more powerful than they are.
Written from Peggy’s point of view, the book would have been a much more tense, much more uncomfortable experience, I think. With Clara as the protagonist, the reader can be introduced to Peggy, just as Clara is. The reader can be seduced by Peggy, but also repulsed by her. I hope that Peggy is the woman that you love to hate. Seeing it through Clara’s eyes, the reader has a front-row view to the scheming and the double-dealing (which can be really fun to witness), but also enjoy a refreshing dose of sincerity and guilelessness. Peggy is anything but guileless!
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