Sarah L. Johnson's Blog, page 7

Ten recent indie-published historical novels to check out

If you aren't paying attention to indie-published historical fiction, you don't have a full picture of what the genre has to offer to readers today. You're also missing out on some wonderful stories. The best of these novels, as with those from mainstream publishers, have excellent writing and editing as well as professional cover art. And with indies, authors are organizing all this on their own, plus handling their own publicity and marketing.

How did I go about choosing these? Some are by authors who have had previous novels out with big presses, so I've been following their writing paths for years. The historical fiction market is so focused on specific eras and trends that when I hear about a new novel by a writer who turned to self-publishing after a successful career with bigger presses, my ears perk up. (While not the focus for this post, this holds true for small presses too.)  These books frequently incorporate less familiar topics, settings, and approaches, and as a reader, I appreciate greater variety.  Others listed below came to my attention through reviews and recommendations from trusted sources, or because I've read and enjoyed previous books by their writers. This is the first of two (at least) posts.
Susan Wittig Albert has published a great many novels (mysteries) with NY presses, both on her own and co-written with her husband. Most of the books in her Hidden Women series of biographical novels, though, have been indie-published, including Loving Eleanor . Her latest, Someone Always Nearby, centers on Maria Chabot, a prominent promoter of Native American art, and a good friend to Georgia O'Keeffe. (November 2023)
The first novel in Elizabeth R. Andersen's Alewives of Colmar series was great fun. In Sleight of Hand, the followup to The Alewives, the three women brewers from 14th-century Alsace have another mystery on their hands when an unfortunate item shows up in one of their cooking pots.  (April 2024)
Pamela Belle's 17th-century Herons of Goldhayes saga, written in the '80s, still holds a treasured place on my bookshelf. The books in her Wintercombe series, following a Puritan woman and her family during the English Civil War, are also longtime favorites. A Parcel of Rogues, her first new novel in over 25 years, incorporates a different style and setting: the decadent, dangerous world of London and other English cities in the early 18th century. (June 2024)
Kinley Bryan's debut Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury  opened my eyes to little-known Great Lakes history and the roles of women at the time. For her second novel, she moves back in time to the Civil War, following two millworker sisters forced to begin new lives far away from their Southern home. (May 2024)

The Lioness is biographical fiction about Jeanne de Clisson, known as the Lion of Brittany, a 14th-century privateer seeking justice for her late husband. The author has also written The Empress, a tie-in to the Netflix series of the same name about Empress Elisabeth of Austria, plus novels for younger readers. (November 2024)
Anne M. Kennedy's debut is historical adventure/suspense. Based on its first three chapters, it took home the silver medal in the Adventure category of the Historical Novel Society's First Chapters competition earlier this year. Opening in 1890 in the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, it follows a man's quest to solve a mystery involving his family, a jeweled artifact, and an encoded message. (September 2024)
Third and latest in her Cape May Historical Mystery series of standalone novels, The Night the Light Went Out is a locked room mystery of sorts set within a lighthouse during a violent storm along the New Jersey coast in the 1820s. The author also writes cozy mysteries and gothic suspense as Amy M. Reade. (August 2024)
After author Michelle Moran recommended this novel on social media, I had to go look it up. Tana Rebellis' novel is first in a duology about Julia the Younger, a Roman noblewoman and Emperor Augustus' granddaughter, who finds herself sent into exile after becoming pregnant with an illegitimate child.  (June 2024)
Tracey Warr specializes in historical fiction set in medieval times; previously published by Impress Books (UK), she has reissued her earlier novels under her own imprint along with new material, including this new book. Love's Knife, first in a series, introduces a female troubadour (trobairitz) who investigates a murder at the court of 11th-century Toulouse. (September 2024)
The Anny of the title is Anne Thackeray, oldest daughter of Vanity Fair's author, as she begins finding her own place in the world, amid family obligations and her own love affairs, after her father's death. Barbara Wright won the Spur award from Western Writers of America for her 2003 novel Plain Language. (June 2024)

The opening round is up for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction

Voting for the opening round in the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for the next week, through November 24th. On the ballot for historical fiction are 20 titles, which appear in a random assortment.


I've read only two of these, The Great Divide and The Frozen River.  Much as I enjoyed these two, I'm going to take a wild guess that the ultimate winner for 2024 will be Kristin Hannah's The Women.  It has a 4.63 rating and, most importantly, 88,160 reviews already on Goodreads.  Nothing else comes close in terms of review numbers. But even though the novels on this grid with fewer than 1000 reviews don't stand much of a chance against very popular books, Goodreads remains a very useful tool for book discovery, and if you want more readers to get their eyes on a book that you highly recommend, have your say and vote for it, in hopes that it will make it through to the final round.  
Kristin Hannah's historical novels always fare well in this competition, but her previous novel, The Four Winds, lost to Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising (which had more overall reviews) in 2021. 

Also, take a look at the initial picks for debut novels, since you'll find historicals there that didn't make the main category, like Ashton Lattimore's All We Were Promised, Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits, Eve J. Chung's Daughters of Shandong, Elba Iris Pérez's The Things We Didn't Know, and O. O. Sangoyomi's Masquerade.
In the fantasy category are Rose Sutherland's A Sweet Sting of Salt, set in 1830s Nova Scotia; Katherine Arden's WWI novel The Warm Hands of Ghosts; Leigh Bardugo's Spanish Golden Age fantasy The Familiar; Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, set in early 20th-century Manchuria; and Ann Liang's mythological Chinese retelling A Song to Drown Rivers.  There's strong reader interest in historical fantasy genre-blends. The horror category has historical novels in it too, namely Del Sandeen's This Cursed House and C. J. Cooke's The Book of Witching.
I don't vote for books I haven't read, so my choice for historical fiction went to Ariel Lawhon's The Frozen River.  We'll see how far it gets in the process. New books frequently get introduced for the final round, so I'll be curious to see those, too.

Rachel Blackmore's Costanza reveals the real woman behind a groundbreaking 17th-century sculpture

She has gazed out at viewers for nearly four centuries: eyes wide, lips parted, hair unkempt, expression determined and sensual. The marble portrait of Costanza Piccolomini, one-time mistress of Baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini, appears so lifelike it could almost speak, but as Rachel Blackmore reminds us in her exceptional debut novel, the real woman deserves a voice that stands independently of the male regard.

In 1630s Rome, Costanza runs a respectable household as the wife of artisan Matteo Bonucelli, a kind but less-than-amorous man. Matteo’s new commission for St. Peter’s Basilica brings the couple into the company of its chief architect, “Il Cavaliere” himself. Attracted by her boldness, Bernini offers to tutor Costanza in art interpretation, events that soon see them tumbling into an affair, a situation her husband—whose interests lie elsewhere—willingly tolerates.

Heady with passion and her new elevated position in society, Costanza sets aside the warnings from Bernini’s old rival and her childhood best friend. Her first encounter with the marble bust Bernini surreptitiously crafts in her image is a masterly scene, showcasing the author’s descriptive prowess alongside Costanza’s realization about her lover’s character, how he views her, and what it means for her reputation.

History records the terrible harm that Bernini inflicted on Costanza, foreshadowed in the chilling prologue, but here the narrative is all hers, revealing in intimate fashion how she reacts to this shocking betrayal and endures a painful loss of pride before gaining sufficient wisdom to come into her own.

This novel serves as a necessary corrective to the historical tendency to glorify talented but violent men while leaving their victims as footnotes. Costanza proves especially powerful since it’s based in fact, and because Blackmore carefully exposes the power differential between the sexes from multiple angles.

Rachel Blackmore's Costanza was published by Renegade Books, an imprint of Dialogue Books/Little Brown UK, in August, and I reviewed it from a personal copy for November's Historical Novels Review. For US-based readers, it's available as an ebook (currently 99 cents on Kindle, for however long this lasts).

Also for the same HNR issue, Katherine Mezzacappa interviewed the author and Harriet Constable (The Instrumentalist) alongside a discussion of her own new novel, The Maiden of Florence, about how they all brought little-known historical Italian women back into the spotlight.  See also Blackmore's piece for The Observer about the real history behind the sculpture of Costanza.

In her author's note, Blackmore explains how she was spurred to write this novel out of fury over the murder of Londoner Sarah Everard in March 2021, and years of "endemic violence against women," as she writes, that has long gone unaddressed. Costanza's story, fortunately, is also one of survival, and if you're curious to learn more about this woman from history's shadows, I recommend it.

Eleanore of Avignon depicts a young woman's courageous path in medieval France

The Provençal city of Avignon in 1347-48 is rife with tension and drama, with the Catholic popes in residence, Queen Joanna of Naples seeking exoneration from her first husband’s murder, the arrival of the plague, and a stressed-out, decimated populace looking for someone to blame. In her debut, DeLozier takes full advantage of her setting’s potential with her exciting story. It’s a quest novel in a sense, encompassing a young woman’s mission to fulfill her calling as a healer while holding her family together in a perilous time.

Eleanore (Elea) and Margot Blanchet are the twin daughters of a papal notary and his late spouse, a talented midwife. One day while seeking herbal remedies outside the city gates, Elea runs into Guy “Guigo” de Chauliac, a man of modest birth who rose to become Pope Clement’s personal physician.

Through a combination of chance and clever negotiations, Elea becomes Guigo’s apprentice and, later, midwife to the expectant Queen Joanna while the deadly pestilence rages through the city. As Guigo and Elea pore over medical texts and tend to patients, desperate to discover a cure, she strives to juggle her multiple responsibilities.

As with other novels where invented characters play big roles in the lives of real people, some plot elements may raise eyebrows, and Elea, while courageous and resourceful, takes some careless risks. The pacing never flags; DeLozier paints the atmosphere clearly without weighty exposition, and the novel’s historical scaffolding shines, especially the details on the two types of plague and their symptoms (as was documented by the real Chauliac, an eminent medieval surgeon).

Elea faces personal danger in the form of a fanatical priest who once targeted her late mother, raising the stakes even higher. An entertaining novel about a woman’s strength and selflessness, unfair prejudice, and the sisterly bond.

Eleanore of Avignon is published next week by Dutton; I'd reviewed it from NetGalley for the Historical Novels Review. The novel made the LibraryReads list for November (the top ten fiction and nonfiction works chosen by US public library staff), which I think is terrific.  A debut novel set in a less familiar place in medieval times, and librarians and their readers are enthusiastic about it.  So let's have more of them! There is a thread related to witchcraft, so the novel fits that historical fiction trend as well.

For their next books, three prominent historical novelists are sticking with their genre roots

Several well-known historical novelists have announced their next books in recent weeks, and I found it especially interesting to see they're returning to (or in one case, staying with) the historical era and/or theme of their most popular books.

Just after the Frankfurt Book Fair began last week, Philippa Gregory's publishing team began getting the word out about her next historical, to be called Boleyn Traitor, focusing on Jane (Parker) Boleyn, the controversial sister-in-law of Anne who was rumored to have played a role in the downfall of two of Henry VIII's queens. Gregory has written about Jane before (she was a viewpoint character in her 2006 novel The Boleyn Inheritance) but the articles about the announcement refer mainly to her The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), her first biographical novel, whose huge success prompted a Tudor renaissance, so to speak, in the genre. 

2001: such a long time ago now.  This is making me feel old.

The pub date for The Boleyn Traitor (HarperCollins) is a year from now, October 2025. Will this new book be any different, or just an extended version of the same story of Jane's life previously told?  We'll have to see, but I imagine there'll be some new interpretation.  It will be the first in a three-book series. Perhaps this means, also, that her Fairmile series, about the rise of an ordinary family in the 17th century, is officially complete at three books.


Not much to see here, really; these are the publishers' placeholder
covers, not the final ones.

Another novelist with strong roots in the 16th century is staying there; Alison Weir's next book, out in May 2025, will be The Cardinal, about Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the English statesman who became Henry VIII's chief adviser and the mentor to his successor, Thomas Cromwell.  Wolsey tumbled from power during the king's attempt to secure a divorce from Katharine of Aragon. This will be Weir's first full biographical novel about someone who isn't a member of a royal family, though he will certainly be a familiar name to readers of Tudor fiction. Nearly all of Weir's novels have been about Henry VIII and his relatives, and since I've reviewed nearly all her recent books for Booklist, I'd been curious to see whether she'd be choosing someone new from the era or moving on to something else.  The publishers are Ballantine (US/Canada) and Headline Review (UK).

Also just announced, Ken Follett's newly revealed Circle of Days takes place far back in the past, much earlier than his previous books, but like his breakout historical The Pillars of the Earth (from way back in 1989), it centers on the vision and building of a significant historical structure: Stonehenge.  Edward Rutherfurd has imagined this event in his Sarum, and Cecelia Holland in Pillar of the Sky, among others, but that won't stop me from reading Follett's version. It will be out in September 2025 from Grand Central (US/Canada) and Quercus (UK).

All three of these books will be highly promoted and will reach many readers who are already eagerly anticipating them. Will this translate into another Tudor (or even a prehistoric) fiction trend?  It's doubtful, but if you enjoy novels set in earlier time periods, you'll have these to look forward to next year.

Julia Park Tracey's Silence examines women's agency in Puritan-era Massachusetts

Steeped in the language and mores of an earlier time, Julia Park Tracey’s meditative and defiantly life-affirming novel Silence follows a young woman punished for speaking her mind during a period of immense personal trauma.

A member of a Separatist Puritan community in seaside Hingham, Massachusetts in 1722, Silence Marsh, the gentle daughter of the village weaver, enjoys a playful, loving relationship with her husband David, a local constable. Then, in rapid, tragic succession, Silence endures the losses of three adored family members, a situation that sees her returning to live with her widowed father in her childhood home. After an outburst in church when she questions a chastening sermon and the purpose of a God who would cause her such grief, authorities sentence her to a series of humiliating public acts as well as a full year of enforced silence, with threats of worse if she doesn’t obey.

Over the subsequent months, Silence – unable to communicate verbally – looks inward, noting the people who shun her and pass judgment (like the parson’s sour-tongued wife) as well as those who see her suffering and try to help. Among the latter is Daniel Greenleaf, a physician from Boston who recommends walks in the fresh air and reading novels. The secret friendship between Silence and the parson’s preteen daughter also raises both their spirits.

Silence’s first-person narrative has the cadences of early New England colonial speech without feeling overly archaic. Finely crafted details on household items, duties, and people’s roles in the community add to the historical atmosphere. (One quibble: the dour royal magistrate, a frighteningly realistic figure, should be called “Sir George,” not “Sir Fellows.”) Silence’s philosophical struggles feel true to the time: a woman discovering her voice in a society that denies its value. Even her father, while caring and sympathetic, insists that she conform, heed the authorities, and accept her penance.

But: “I know your religion’s great men call for treating the bodily humours and for obeying the will of God, but God has given us the great gift of free will to learn and grow,” Dr. Greenleaf tells her. He perceives her melancholia as an illness, not the manifestation of sin, and explains that he wants to treat her accordingly. The novel explores, with carefulness and great compassion, how Silence begins to wrap her mind around this unfamiliar concept, one completely opposite to her religious upbringing. In this, Silence embodies all women trapped in a cruel, repressive situation as she slowly gains the wisdom and courage – and burning fury – to break away from it.

In the end, as accusations of witchcraft swirl through Hingham, Silence must decide how to use her voice, or whether she should use it at all. There are no simple answers, but Silence, after the most painful year of her life, knows the importance of making her own choice.

Silence was published by Sibylline Press, a publisher focusing on works by women over 50, in September; my thanks to them for the review copy. The main character is based on the author's 7th great-grandmother.

Kimberly Brock's The Fabled Earth unfolds a multilayered mystery surrounding Georgia's Cumberland Island

In her third novel, Brock (The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, 2022) proves marvelously adept at intertwining mythic stories with contemporary reality and showing how people reconcile the two.

In 1959, illustrator Cleo Woodbine has lived alone on a tiny isle near Georgia’s Cumberland Island ever since the terrible events of one long-ago summer. When she receives a mailed obituary for a woman she knew back then, it rocks her world and introduces her to others seeking connection, including Frances Flood, the late woman’s daughter, and young, widowed innkeeper Audrey Howell. Their viewpoints alternate alongside Cleo’s experiences in 1932, when a night of storytelling around a bonfire culminated in two young men’s drownings and the potential sighting of a river siren.

While tackling issues of race and class prejudice, Brock’s lush, multi-layered writing begs to be read slowly as she gently unfolds the mysteries of this picturesque yet haunted Southern landscape, where once-elegant Carnegie mansions still stand. An ideal choice for admirers of Delia Owens, Sarah Loudin Thomas, and Sarah Addison Allen.

The Fabled Earth is published this month by Harper Muse, and I originally wrote this review for Booklist's September 15th issue. Doesn't this novel have a gorgeous cover?  You can read more about the Carnegie mansions on Cumberland Island, and see photos of the beautiful landscape, via this blog post written by Vann Helms.

Victoria Thompson's Murder in Rose Hill delves into Gilded Age medical cures and family dynamics

Anyone conducting research in Gilded Age news archives will note the proliferation of ads for patent medicines: concoctions promoted as cure-alls for myriad ailments. The industry was notoriously unregulated, with many such products either ineffective or dangerously addictive.

Set in 1901 Manhattan, Murder in Rose Hill homes in on this interesting subject. Louisa Rodgers, secretary and would-be journalist at New Century magazine, has been found strangled in her workplace’s lobby, days after the young woman had interviewed former midwife Sarah Malloy at her charity clinic, requesting background for a planned exposé about these tonics. Frank Malloy, private investigator and ex-police detective, is hired by Louisa’s distraught father since the cops dismiss the case as a random attack.

This cozy mystery presents the investigative process as a family affair, with Sarah, Frank, their nanny/secretary Maeve, and her beau Gino hustling through the city, pursuing leads and trying to suss out who’s lying. There’s parental involvement, too, with both Mother Malloy and Sarah’s society-maven mother, Elizabeth, contributing entertainingly astute observations. Besides the intricate process of determining motive, one gripping subplot involves the Malloys’ piecing together of Louisa’s character. “What an odd family,” Frank thinks about the Rodgerses after he meets them all and sees how Louisa’s independent streak stirred up resentment. Louisa’s relatives, her boss, a coworker, and patent medicine manufacturers, among others, land on the suspect list.

Readers won’t have trouble getting oriented if they start with this 27th volume in the Gaslight Mysteries, though the constantly revolving viewpoint takes some getting used to, and Sarah flirting with her husband on the doorstep of Louisa’s funeral feels awkward. Long-time followers of the series may not mind, and the book takes a well-researched look at social and health issues from the era, specifically those affecting older women.

Murder in Rose Hill was published in late April by Berkley, and I'd reviewed it for the Historical Novels Review's August issue. I happened to be researching in old newspapers for a work project at the time I read it, which led to a nice tie-in with the novel. Sadly, Victoria Thompson passed away on August 23rd from cancer. In addition to her long-running Gaslight Mysteries (the first of which was published in 1999), she also authored the Counterfeit Lady novels featuring a female con artist in Gilded Age New York.

Historical novels are acclaimed via a number of recent literary awards

Over the past few weeks, many literary prize announcements have come to my attention via industry news sources or social media.  And historical novels have been among the winners!  Some of these awards are ones I haven't posted about before, and each has a different, frequently specialized focus.  If the scope for these awards interests you, you may find it worthwhile to visit their websites to research past winners, too. 

First, the highest-profile award among them: the Booker Prize, for the best overall English-language novel published in the UK and Ireland. Out of the six works of fiction on the shortlist, three are historical fiction, with settings ranging from a WWI-era battlefield (Anne Michaels' Held) to the southern US just before the Civil War (Percival Everett's James) to the Netherlands in the 1960s (The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden). The winner will be announced on Nov. 12.




The longlists for the Gold Crown and Debut Crown awards from the Historical Writers' Association were announced on September 18th. The awards recognize "the best historical writing, fiction and non-fiction, published in the UK and its ability to engage, illuminate, entertain and inform legions of readers."

The HWA looks back at least 35 years in the past for its definition of what constitutes historical fiction.  I wasn't able to find the longlists on their site, but the following images were shared on social media. To be honest, I'm often more interested in seeing longlists and shortlists than the ultimate winner, because it means more books!  And I know, from being on prize committees, how challenging it can be to reach consensus among judges and choose just one.



Since the cover images are on the small side, titles and authors (plus settings) are as follows:

The Glutton, A. K. Blakemore - 18th-century France
The Fox Wife, Yangsze Choo - 1908 Manchuria
Clear, Carys Davies - 1840s Scotland
You Dreamed of Empires, Alvaro Enrigue - 16th-century Mexico
Disobedient, Elizabeth Fremantle - 17th-century Rome
Loot, Tania James - 18th-century India and Europe
The Book of Days, Francesca Kay - Tudor England
Quint, Robert Lautner - WWII-era; prequel to Jaws
Cast a Cold Eye, Robbie Morrison - 1933 Glasgow
A Woman of Pleasure, Kiyoko Murata - early 20th-century Japan
Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford - alternate America in 1922
Absolutely and Forever, Rose Tremain - 1950s-60s Britain
The Gold Crown is for previously published authors, while the Debut Crown is, naturally, for first novels.



Again, the details:

The Other Side of Mrs. Wood, Lucy Barker - Victorian LondonThe Golden Gate, Amy Chua - WWII-era California
Leeward, Katie Daysh - early 19th-century naval warfare
Colours of Siena, Judith May Evans - 14th-century TuscanyThe Maiden, Kate Foster - 17th-century Edinburgh
The Painter's Daughters, Emily Howes - 18th-century England
All Us Sinners, Katy Massey - 1977 LeedsOur Hideous Progeny, C. E. McGill - 1850s England
The Witching Tide, Margaret Meyer - 17th-century East Anglia
The Beholders, Hester Musson - Victorian London
The Revels, Stacey Thomas - 17th-century England
The Tumbling Girl, Bridget Walsh - Victorian London

Next are the American Book Awards from the Beyond Columbus Foundation, for "outstanding literary achievement across the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community." Among the 18 honorees announced on September 5, both nonfiction and fiction, are two historical novels: Debra Magpie Earling's The Lost Journals of Sacajewea and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Independence.


The latest fiction winner of the New England Book Award (announced Sept. 12) is a novel I've reviewed here previously, North Woods by Daniel Mason. Submissions must be either about New England, set in New England, or written by an author residing in New England. 

Lastly, if you hadn't been aware there was a prize for adventure fiction... let me introduce you to the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, named after the well-known adventure novelist who passed away in 2021.  And if you aren't sure what this genre encompasses (perhaps more than you'd think), their website will tell you.  This is an international prize for English-language fiction, and this year's winner is Francesca de Tores' Saltblood, set during the Golden Age of Piracy. Read more in an interview with the author.


The sponsor of the prize is the Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation.

If you've come across any other relevant award notices, please leave a comment, or just reply if you're reading this through email.

The View from Behind the Camera: My Family and Old Hollywood, an essay by Ginny Kubitz Moyer

Longtime readers of this blog will know I'm drawn to historical novels inspired by family history, and along these lines, Ginny Kubitz Moyer has a really interesting story to tell.  Please read on!  Moyer's novel A Golden Life is out from She Writes Press today.

~

The View from Behind the Camera: My Family and
Old HollywoodBy Ginny Kubitz Moyer
Ask a roomful of authors where they get their story ideas, and you’ll likely hear some surprising answers. In my case, the inspiration for the Hollywood setting of my novel A Golden Life came from two unexpected sources: my younger son and my great-grandfather.

In late 2018, when my son Luke was in fourth grade, he was assigned a report highlighting an aspect of California history. He chose the history of Hollywood, so we headed to the library to do research. There, we found that the movie industry was not a popular subject for middle grade authors; children’s books on the topic were as scarce as SoCal rain in July. I told Luke I’d find some adult sources to use, and we’d go over them together.

To be honest, I embraced the task, because I’ve always loved old Hollywood. In high school, I decorated my bedroom with a poster of Casablanca and black and white photos of 1940s movie icons. I loved actors from the Golden Age of movies more than actors my own age; there was something about their class, elegance, and talent that captivated me.

On an even deeper level, I’ve always felt a personal identification with old Hollywood because of my family history. My great-grandfather, William S. Adams, was a cinematographer in the silent movie era. His career began in his native Brooklyn, but in the mid-1920s, when the movie industry started shifting from the East Coast to California, William followed it west. He later sent for his wife and two young daughters (the elder, Ruth, was my grandmother) to join him. The family put down roots in Southern California, where my great-grandmother herself later found work in the movie industry as a film cutter for Warner Brothers.

The Adams family, on location in southern California, approx. 1926.
Left to right: Ruth (my grandmother); William S. Adams;
Ruth Lillian Owen Adams; Jessamyn Adams.

William’s films were mostly adventure stories, including several “flying ace” movies with exciting aerial stunts. Some of the equipment he used can be seen in a photograph from the February 1927 issue of The Motion Picture Director of Hollywood, which features William and two fellow cinematographers posing proudly with their cameras. Overall, from 1913 to 1930 William worked on at least 34 films for directors such as Ralph Ince and James Stuart Blackton (William’s half-brother and the founder of Vitagraph Studios). One of these films apparently featured a very special bit player: my grandmother, who as an infant was pressed into service when the director needed a baby for a particular scene. Like many actors of the era, alas, her starring turn has been lost to time.

One hundred years later, it’s astonishing to me that my great-grandfather’s cinematography took him quite literally around the world, including to China and Fiji. He always brought back souvenirs, usually dolls, for my grandmother. Tragically, William’s travels led to his early death; he contracted malarial fever while on location in Borneo, and he died in Hollywood in December 1930. My grandmother, only eleven at the time, kept the dolls he gave her for the rest of her life. The history they represented was always a source of fascination to me.

During that winter of 2018-2019, as I helped Luke with his research (and told him his great-great-grandfather’s story), I gained a new feel for those heady early days of Hollywood. I gained a stronger sense of the historical arc of the motion picture industry. And the more I read, the more I wanted to explore old Hollywood, and the experiences of those who lived and worked there.

Simply put: I wanted to write a novel about it.

As a writer, I often have vague ideas for characters before any other details take shape. Prior to Luke’s project, I’d been captivated by the idea of a secretary and her boss on a road trip. I didn’t know much about either character, or why they were traveling together—but with the Hollywood history so fresh in my mind, it occurred to me that my protagonist could be a secretary in a movie studio, and her boss could be a producer. That idea had energy behind it. I was excited to explore it further.

William S. Adams, far right, with Conrad Luperti and J. Marvin Spoor.
(Wikimedia Commons)

So after Luke’s report was finished, I kept on researching. I decided to set my story in 1938, the Golden Age of Hollywood, and my deep dive into the period was utterly absorbing. I read about the powerful studio system of the time, which helped me design my fictional VistaGlen Studios from producer Lawrence Merrill’s corner office down to the backlots. I perused old movie magazines, getting a feel for the breathless publicity campaigns that propelled new actors to stardom (and which inspired the rise of my fictional ingenue Belinda Vail). And watching movies from the late 1930s immersed me in the fashion, slang, and manners of the time, a delightful kind of research that helped me bring my secretary protagonist, Frances Healey, to life.

I wish — how I wish— I could have sat down with my great-grandfather and heard his stories of the movie industry. It pains me that those experiences are not recorded for posterity. But although A Golden Life is pure fiction, I’ve tried my best to make it an accurate portrait of this unique slice of American history. I hope it faithfully captures the flavor of 1938 Hollywood, a place that was equal parts glamour and grind for secretaries and stars alike.

~
Ginny Kubitz Moyer is a California native with a love of local history. Her novel A Golden Life, which earned a starred Kirkus review, moves from 1938 Hollywood to the Napa Valley. Her novel The Seeing Garden, which won Silver in the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction, brings to life the vanished world of the San Francisco Bay Area's great estates. An avid weekend gardener, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two sons, and one rescue dog. Learn more at ginnymoyer.org.

Instagram: @moyerginny
Facebook: Ginny Kubitz Moyer, Author