(Researching Your Fiction Like a Reporter.)

Zelda led me to Sara and Gerald Murphy (the inspiration for Nicole and Dick Diver in Zelda’s husband’s Tender Is the Night). I absolutely devoured Amanda Vaill’s Everybody Was So Young. It’s a fascinating biography of the couple and the era, but, by far, its most compelling character is Dorothy Parker.

Dorothy Parker began an obsession with the Algonquin Round Table and a need to access The New Yorker archives so that I could read the pieces Harold Ross, the magazine’s founder, solicited from his friends. It was in those archives where I discovered “Lipstick” and Lois Long, whose job description was essentially “go out every night, drink illegally, dance until dawn, then file copy while still wearing your evening gown.”

I eagerly read every word she wrote.

Lois could eviscerate the stuffy in a single sentence and describe a grimy basement speakeasy with such enthusiasm that one was tempted to find it immediately (never mind that it probably reeked of bathtub gin and poor life choices).

How did she manage to be sophisticated without being insufferable? How did she make one feel like her equal while making it perfectly clear that she knew every doorman, bartender, and bootlegger in Manhattan? And her voice? Wry, witty, and pitch perfect.

Then I realized what she was actually doing, and it got even more interesting.

Lois wasn’t reporting on speakeasy culture. She was selling it. Her columns were basically aspirational lifestyle content for illegal activity. “Here’s where to go, darling. Here’s what to drink. Here’s how to be one of us—glamorous, naughty, in-the-know.”

I’d reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, and I was thrilled to be there.

That’s where Freddie Archer was born. A columnist, not an earnest journalist pretending to be objective, but a woman with opinions, a platform, and taste (especially for Gordon’s Gin and couture gowns). Like Lois, she’s not just observing the speakeasies and cabarets. She’s complicit. She’s telling people where to find the best gin rickey and where the real fun happens. She’s both insider and enabler, participant and promoter.

I tried to give Freddie some of Lois’s sparkle—lipstick freshly applied, jazz in her bones, and ready for whatever the night brings. It’s a tall order. Lois set the bar somewhere near the Art Deco ceiling.

But then I had another thought: What if a woman with those wicked observational skills—someone who spent her nights studying people, reading rooms, noticing who was drinking with whom and why—stumbled onto a murder? What if all that sharp-eyed instinct that made her so good at skewering phonies and spotting trends got turned toward something darker? A woman who could dissect a speakeasy’s clientele in three paragraphs could probably dissect a crime scene too. And she’d have access to places and people the police never could. After all, everyone talks to a woman with a column.

And New York in the 1920s? The perfect stage, the perfect moment. The city was building skyward so fast that one could practically watch it grow. Money flowed like bootleg gin that absolutely nobody drank because that would be illegal (wink, wink). Jazz—glorious, vital, born in New Orleans and perfected in Harlem—became the soundtrack for a generation trying to dance away the memory of war. And Prohibition turned the entire city into one big secret, where the right password opened a world of illicit possibility.

The glamor still enchants me. Beaded dresses catching the light. Art Deco everything. Fur stoles, diamonds, lipstick in shades like “Dragon’s Blood” applied as an act of rebellion or seduction (or possibly both). There was a desperate gaiety to the whole era, a sense that everyone was savoring every smile, every dance, and every drink because maybe, just maybe, it might not last.

When I started writing Murder in Manhattan, I wanted to portray that glittering surface with dark undercurrents underneath—champagne cocktails and murder, beaded dresses and bloodstains. But more than that, I wanted Freddie’s voice running through it all. Her confidence that comes from knowing every speakeasy password in Manhattan. Freddie is a woman who’ll pause mid-murder investigation to note that the victim’s shoes are from last season. She treats crime-solving like she treats everything else: with a gin rickey in one hand, perfect makeup, and the absolute certainty that the world is her oyster.

Lois’s sharp wit and obvious delight in the jazz age came through with every word she wrote. Hopefully, Freddie does the same—even as she catches a killer.

I dove down a rabbit hole chasing Zelda, the Murphys, and Dorothy Parker and found Lois. Now I get to ask readers to join me. The gin is cold, the jazz is swinging, and the fashion is killer.

Check out Julie Mulhern’s Murder in Manhattan here:

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In this interview, Bryn discusses the power of a high-concept story, surprises in the writing process, avoiding AI like poison, and much more.

Name: Bryn Donovan
Literary agent: Julie Gwinn, The Seymour Agency
Book title: Her Time Traveling Duke
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: December 9, 2025
Genre/category: Romantic Comedy; Paranormal & Fantasy Romance
Previous titles: Her Knight at the Museum, Berkley; Master Lists for Writers
Elevator pitch for the book: Magic meets science and sunshine meets grumpy when a love spell whisks a Regency-era duke to modern times.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Rose Novak, the heroine of this book, was the best friend of the heroine in my previous book, Her Knight at the Museum. I usually take a long time to develop characters, but Rose showed up on the page fully formed. She’s a self-taught, chaotic witch, and as I wrote the first scene with her in book one, I realized something about her that inspired the story in Her Time Traveling Duke.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

It took about a year and a half from the original idea to publication, but of course, the book was finished months in advance of the release date. I had to do a lot of research for this one: Regency-era England, art restoration, the history of astronomy, time travel theories, and another topic that would be too spoiler-y to mention. My editor and I agreed on a synopsis in advance, so the plot didn’t change much until the end.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

One thing I’ve learned over the past few years is the power of a high-concept story. In other words, you read the title and the logline, and you see the cover design, and you know what you’re getting. The publisher changed my original title to Her Time Traveling Duke, and I thought that was perfect. That title, paired with his cover illustration, conveys the “man out of time” idea so quickly.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

There is one thing in the story that could go either way, and until I got to the end of the first draft, I really didn’t know what would happen! Also at the end, something happens to a secondary character that I didn’t see coming, although in retrospect, I should have.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

There are two themes I come back to again and again. One of them is taking joy in the moment, even when things are tough. Rose grew up working class, and she has tragedy and heartbreak in her past, but she still finds the magic in life, figuratively as well as literally. The other theme is about nothing being ever truly lost.

I love writing about Chicago because so many people have false impressions of the city. It isn’t high in crime; it doesn’t even rank in the top 25 most dangerous U.S. cities. Chicago is filled with culture, it has unique traditions, and the lake and the skyscrapers are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. In Her Time Traveling Duke, you’ll visit Rose’s vibrant neighborhood of Pilsen, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Riverwalk, a Lincoln Park mansion, a basement apartment on the South Side, and a hot dog stand with famously rude employees. The city is definitely one of the main characters in the book.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Avoid so-called AI like poison. Your brain needs regular practice at putting together sentences, and even writing a boring email counts. A recent MIT study showed that regular use of large language models like ChatGPT negatively affected memory, attention span, and executive function—all things you need to write. Besides, you never want to be tempted to lie about your process. That’s never going to feel great. The way you brainstorm and work through creative roadblocks is part of what makes your writing unique, and your authorial voice is worth nurturing.

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(Historical Fiction as a Heist of Its Own.)

Psychologists tell us that cracking codes, solving riddles, resolving conundrums, and uncovering the truth behind history’s most puzzling questions releases dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter. And while we wait for the answers to these real-life enigmas, we indulge our captivation with history’s mysteries by reading historical crime fiction—excellent news for those of us who write it.

The mystery novel was born in the 19th century and grew up during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, usually described as the period between the two world wars. Conventions of the genre include a puzzle to be solved (usually a murder); a secluded setting, such as a village, a country house, an island; a sleuth (often amateur); a limited cast of suspects; and plenty of clues and red herrings.

Today, hundreds of mysteries are written each year in the tradition and style of the Golden Age. Historical mysteries encompass four related sub-genres:

• Mysteries written in the past
• Mysteries written today but set in the past
• Mysteries set in the present with a historical crime or puzzle to solve
• Mysteries with dual timelines (past and present)

My own series, the Kate Hamilton Mysteries, falls into the third category. Kate is an American antiques dealer and appraiser who lives and plies her trade in the fictional Suffolk village of Long Barston. The antiques and antiquities Kate handles provide me with a natural way to delve into the past since these precious objects are literal time travelers.

What accounts for the enduring popularity of mysteries steeped in the past? Here are four reasons we continue to read them, to write them, and to love them.

Time Travel Without Antibiotics

Carl Sagan once said, “What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years…. Books break the shackles of time.”  

Most of us have considered the possibility of time travel. If it were possible, would you do it? My answer is usually “only if I could pop home periodically for a hot shower and a dose of antibiotics.” Nevertheless, the thought of experiencing the past in real time holds endless fascination for many of us, and until science bridges the seemingly impenetrable time barrier, the next best thing is immersing oneself in a book.

A well-researched and well-written historical mystery immerses readers in the fictional world, and the experience begins with the author. In a recent podcast, Anthony Horowitz advised authors: “Don’t stand on the edge of the book, looking as it were over the edge of the chasm. Live inside the book, looking around you. So what my characters see—what they smell, what they feel, the wind, the sunshine—if I am, as I have said, inside the book, I’m not thinking about these things. Not writing what they’re saying, I’m listening to what they’re saying.”

Authors who deliver a multi-layered sensory and emotional experience of the past allow readers to travel with them in a virtual time machine to worlds populated by characters so incredibly real we mourn their loss on the final page. Through mysteries steeped in history, we can travel to the 12th century with Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael or plunge into the swirling pea-soup fog of Victorian London with Sherlock Holmes and still be home in time for supper.

The Lost Art of Deductive (and Inductive) Reasoning

Solving crimes today is primarily a matter of science and technology. The recent theft at The Louvre in Paris is an example. Within eight minutes, start to finish, the thieves entered the museum and escaped with an estimated $102 million in priceless historical jewels. And yet they left their DNA behind on a helmet, a glove, and a stolen truck with a mechanical cherry picker. That DNA was quickly matched to suspects in the police databases and using additional forensic tools such as cell phone records and video surveillance, the police were able to snag the four suspects and three possible accomplices within days.

By itself, the investigation wouldn’t make much of a plot. It was too easy. Readers want conflict, misdirection, false leads, and reversals. We want to figure it out.

Those of us who write crime fiction must take modern methods of policing into account, of course, but what happened to good old-fashioned sleuthing? If everything comes down to science, is there room for the uniquely human art of ratiocination?

One of the appeals of historical crime fiction is the challenge of following clues and exercising our powers of deductive and inductive reasoning along with the sleuth. When the author plays fair with readers, every clue needed to solve the case is laid out for us—cleverly disguised, of course, amongst red herrings designed to point us in the wrong direction. Authors love to keep readers guessing, and we love it most of all when readers say at the end, “I never saw it coming—but I should have.”

Learning History the Painless Way

If I learned anything in my high school or college history classes about the Regency Era in England, I’ve forgotten it; but I’ve never forgotten the experience of being there through the novels of Jane Austen. “The historian will tell you what happened,” said E. L. Doctorow, the American writer of historical fiction. “The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

Novels steeped in history bridge the gap between documented history and imaginative storytelling. Memorizing dates and facts may get you through your exam, but it won’t give you an understanding of what life was actually like in the past. That’s where the characters in our stories come in—presenting history through the power of personal narrative.

I remember helping my son, John, prepare for a high-school exam covering the history-changing sea battle in 1588 between the English navy and the Spanish Armada. John had zero interest in 16th-century European politics, ship construction, battle strategies, and the superiority of long-range canons and “hell-fire ships” over heavy siege canons and greater numbers. I soon gave up on the textbook and began to dramatize the scene, playing up the “near-miraculous” storm that kicked up in the English Channel, generating strong winds that pushed the heavy Spanish ships toward the North Sea. I knew I’d won when he started asking questions: What would have happened if the Spanish had won?

To be retained, history must fire our imaginations. Nina Wachsman, art expert and fellow writer of historical fiction, said, “The Mona Lisa didn’t become the most famous picture in the world until it was stolen in 1911.” Now we want to know who she was and what was behind that enigmatic smile.

In A Collection of Lies (2024), along with the unfolding plot and through the eyes and mouths of my characters, I layer in the history of the English Romanis, the lives of Victorian lacemakers, mid-19th century fashion, the art of historical textile conservation, the mires and bogs of Devon’s Dartmoor National Park, the Dartmoor ponies, and the vicissitudes of local British politics. Medicine, Mary Poppins reminded us, goes down better with a bit of sugar. History nerds (like me) would never call Hilaire Belloc’s “great panoply of history” medicine, but even we must admit that history goes down better when experienced through the eyes, minds, and hearts of characters we care about.

A Spot of Nostalgia

A final and major reason we love mysteries steeped in history is the human emotion of nostalgia, once described by novelist and screenwriter Michael Chabon as “the ache that arises from the consciousness of lost connection.” But a connection with what? The interesting truth is we often feel nostalgic for a past that never existed. Even our own lived pasts are commonly shaped and polished in our minds over time until they resemble the past we prefer.

Nostalgia is a coping mechanism. The anxiety produced by the uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change of modern life can be soothed by a few hours spent in an idealized historical period that delivers the simplicity, moral clarity, and predictability we crave. And because the human brain has the ability to hold two opposing truths simultaneously, we can enjoy our virtual visit to the past while knowing full well it is pure fiction.

In a talk given in 2016 at the St. Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Weekend, Martin Edwards, British crime novelist and leading authority on the crime fiction genre, said about the Golden Age mysteries: “[These books] take us back to a time that is perceived as gentler and more appealing. The reality of life in the Twenties and Thirties was very different, of course, but the past can often seem appealing. If you’re a commuter suffering on Southern Rail, for instance, it must be very tempting to escape into the world of Freeman Wills Crofts and Miles Burton, where murderers could craft their alibis safe in the knowledge that the trains would always run as per timetable.”

The pace of change today is overwhelming. No wonder we crave the comforting predictability of trains that run on time. The mysteries of the past and those written today in that tradition provide an escape from an increasingly chaotic and polarized world into the calm civility of an imagined past, satisfying our yearning for a world where logic prevails, puzzles are solved, evil is punished, and justice is restored.

Long may they live.

Check out Connie Berry’s A Grave Deception here:

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The post From Antiques to Alibis: Why We Love Mysteries Steeped in History appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Julie discusses how women’s history helped inspire her new historical mystery, Murder in Manhattan, which real-life person her heroine is based on, and more.

Name: Julie Mulhern
Literary agent: Gordon Warnock, Fuse Literary
Book title: Murder in Manhattan
Publisher: Forever
Release date: December 9, 2025
Genre/category: Historical Mystery
Previous titles: The Country Club Murders series and The Poppy Fields Adventures
Elevator pitch: An entertainment columnist with a wry wit and exceptional observational skills involves herself in the murder of a bootlegger in 1925 New York.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Decades that see enormous changes for women fascinate me. I already had a series set in the 1970s. The 1920s seemed the obvious choice for a new series. Watching an independent woman navigate casual misogyny (of course she’ll quit working when she lands a husband) as she drinks her way through Manhattan’s speakeasies (and writes about them) appealed to me.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

The idea for Murder in Manhattan was one of several that I pitched to my agent. It sort of went meh, meh, meh. That one! It took me about a year to write the novel. And then came a year of being out on submission. After I signed the contract, things moved very quickly.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

My heroine, Freddie Archer, is based on a real-life writer. Lois Long was an early hire at The New Yorker. She wrote several columns–my favorite being Lipstick, in which she regaled her readers with stories of New York nightlife. What a blessing to be able to access The New Yorker’s archives and read her columns. They were invaluable when it came to honing Freddie’s voice and sensibilities.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Freddie’s adventures take her from rooftop gardens to dilapidated buildings on the Lower East Side. Being separated by half a country and 100 years from 1920s New York meant lots of time spent on research. There were many rabbit holes (and I cannot resist a rabbit hole)—the Tenement Museums website claimed at least a day. I learned more about New York history than I ever dreamed I’d know. And, since I have a brain like a sieve, I am relearning it as I write the second book in the series.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I desperately wish I could have met Lois Long. I like to think we might have been friends (although Lois, who never turned down a martini, probably would have found me dreadfully dull). I hope readers will want to be friends with Freddie as she gets herself in and out of hot water and solves a murder.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

It’s all about voice. I’ve read technically perfect mysteries that felt flat, and deeply flawed mysteries with voice for days. It’s the voice that keeps me reading long into the series.

The post Julie Mulhern: It’s All About Voice appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Croydon discusses the inspiration for his debut novel, how research enhanced his story, and more.

Name: Nick Croydon
Literary agent: Shane Salerno The Story Factory
Book title: The Turing Protocol
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release date: December 1, 2025
Genre/category: Fiction, Thriller
Elevator pitch for the book: Alan Turing, codebreaker, invents a machine that can send a Morse code message back in time, 8 weeks. We follow Turing and his descendants through 80 years of history in this fast-paced action thriller. What would you do?

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What prompted you to write this book?

A deep appreciation for what Alan Turing achieved and the regret at how he was treated culminating in the loss of his life and his potential.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

2 1/2 years. The main idea did not change, but the more research I did allowed me to shape the fiction to the history.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Because of my day job, I had to be very disciplined in the output. I followed a chapter plan and set myself weekly targets which of course I did not meet.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

As a debut author, I had no concept of the editing process. Thankfully this is what my agent and the publishers understand. Seeing the cuts and deletions, the structural notes were at first painful to see, but ultimately made the book so much better.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope they get entertained and I hope it sparks their interest in history and a realization of how fragile peace can be.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Trust in your agent, they have done it before.

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…start typing.

Hang on. Did you think we were referring to something else?

Okay, but here’s the thing: Writing a book is not that dissimilar to planning a heist, especially when that book takes place in the past. Crafting historical fiction requires its writers to invade real life in a way that goes unnoticed by the historical record to unique spectacular effect. Get in, get out, don’t get caught is the name of the game, whether you’re writing the story of an Egyptian scribe, an 18th century schooner captain, or—as in the case of our upcoming novel, My Fair Frauds—two female con artists in Gilded Age New York. You want to reap rewards without making any alarm bells sound. In order to do so, you need to know your setting like the back of your hand.

Much like a criminal mastermind, writers of historical fiction need to answer key logistical questions. On this day, in this year, what is the layout of the setting? Where and when, for example, was the Patriarch’s Ball held during the 1883-1884 social season and how might one secure an invitation? Or in the case of our archaeology adventure, The Antiquity Affair, what would be the most appropriately large artifact to hide behind in the main gallery of the Cairo Museum as it was laid out in 1907? If characters needed to hide from criminals hunting them, such as in our Old Hollywood caper, The Starlets, could they realistically walk from the Monte Carlo harbor to the Palais des Princes? You need to know your story’s city layouts, your modes of transportation, and any obstacles in your characters’ ways. After all, a big job is worth nothing if you don’t land the getaway.

But first, of course…you need a crew, as well as a shared goal driving that crew to act. Now, here’s a key point of difference. Whereas in planning a seamless theft or con job, it is crucial to minimize drama between the key players, the opposite holds true in plotting a novel. The more interpersonal dynamite, the better. Which personalities would be the most ideally placed into this situation, but also personally impacted by being involved in the pursuit of this goal? How might their differing perspectives cause them to chafe against each other, or, conversely, to work spectacularly well together? What ripple effects might the flaws of your chosen players create in the otherwise meticulous plan you’ve masterminded?

Which brings us to the key element of any well-crafted scheme, whether criminal or literary: Be prepared for things to go wildly off script. Sometimes people don’t behave the way you want them to–even when they’re your own characters. The seemingly-solid foundation of logic you’ve built your plans upon can only be tested through the pressure of the moment–the day of the heist, the drafting and evaluating and rewriting of the book. It may seem simple to get a character from point A to point B in your outline, but when you sit down to connect those dots in prose, it becomes clear that it is not so simple in practice. At that point, you must be prepared to toss it all out and pivot. Stubborn adherence to the past plan can only lead to disaster in the bald light of the present reality. Also worth noting: Sometimes hiccups in the plan make for the most delightful plot twists.

If this all sounds rather stress-inducing and fraught–well, of course it is! If anyone told you writing a book would be easy, they were selling you a con worthy of the lying ladies of My Fair Frauds. But much like in a heist, those long writing days and nights of sweating the details, managing difficult characters, and poring over myriad plot complications all become worthwhile when the goal is achieved. The big win, the finished novel, that glorious The End, provides a particular kind of satisfaction that is worth its weight in gold.

Wow, you’ll say to yourself at the end. I can’t believe we pulled this off.

Check out Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne’s My Fair Frauds here:

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_____________________________

(Disclaimer: The above article is no way an endorsement of nor an indication of criminal activity on the part of either author. Grand larceny and fraud are crimes and very obviously wrong. We suggest you chase the thrill of becoming a mastermind by writing a novel instead.)

The post The Back in Time Job: Historical Fiction as a Heist of Its Own appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Find more Killer Writers conversations here.)

I recently caught up with Charles in Florida, where we talked about how he keeps history feeling alive on the page, how to avoid the dreaded “information dump,” how to make a time period breathe, and how the past can illuminate the present. What follows is one of the most insightful conversations I’ve had about the art of writing historical fiction and, really, about the timeless craft of storytelling itself.

“Charles, we’re going to talk about writing history as a living story, not as a historical document, but as something that feels alive even though it’s set in another time. My first question is: How do you decide which details from your research to use and which ones to leave out so the story keeps moving?”

“That’s always the challenge. Every writing class warns you about the ‘information dump.’ New writers love to show everything they’ve learned. They want readers to understand every bit of backstory and context. But what makes the world real isn’t a lecture; it’s the way characters live inside it. Their outlook, how they move, how they speak. I try to let that do the work rather than explaining it in three paragraphs of exposition.”

“So less telling, more living.”

“Exactly. I use dialogue wherever possible. There’s a wonderful old book called Show, Don’t Tell that captures the idea. Take something as simple as crank-starting a car. You don’t need to describe the full process every time, turning the ignition, setting the choke, walking around to crank the motor, but you also can’t have him hop in and drive off. The act itself tells you where you are in time. The trick is knowing when the detail matters.”

“When you start writing a historical piece, do you think of it as ‘historical,’ or does it feel present-tense to you as you write?”

“I live in the moment I’m writing about. When I’m working with Rutledge or Bess Crawford, I see them in their world. It’s as natural to me as breathing. The hard part is when the seasons in real life don’t match the book. It can be the middle of summer outside, but I’m describing winter in England. You’re trying to feel the cold, the stillness, the look of bare trees, and nothing outside your window helps you get there.”

“Writing characters who lived in another time…does that distance ever make them harder to portray as real, human people?”

“After nearly 30 years of writing these books, I don’t really think of them as ‘historical.’ I think of them as contemporaries, alive and working in their own year. That mental shift is important. The hardest part is transitioning in and out of that headspace. I’ll be deep in a scene, and the phone rings, and suddenly I’m yanked from 1919 back into the modern world. It takes a few minutes to find my way back in again. When you’re truly immersed, the story feels as real as anything outside your window.”

“A lot of historical novels try to capture every event of the period, and sometimes it starts to sound like a history lesson. How do you keep from letting that overwhelm the story?”

“By remembering what’s germane to the story and what isn’t. I stay aware of what was happening in the world at that moment, but unless it touches my characters directly, the reader doesn’t need to know it. I’m writing about people, not headlines. There are exceptions when real events naturally intersect with the plot. If Agatha Christie disappears and my story happens to be set in Harrogate at that time, that belongs in the book. But if the story’s in Cornwall, it doesn’t. Otherwise, you risk turning your novel into commentary or politics, and that’s not why readers are there.”

“I love how your settings become characters themselves. How do you achieve that?”

“Location is absolutely a character. Take Northumberland. It isn’t like Cornwall or the Midlands. Its history, its dialect, even its landscape come from different roots, more Norse, more Scottish influence. You can feel it in the air. When you walk those fishing villages, see the herring boats, smell the smoke from the kipper sheds, you realize the land and sea shaped the people. That’s why I always go there. You can’t fake that knowledge. ‘Boots on the ground,’ as I like to say. Walk the streets, talk to the people, study what makes their world unique. Then, when Rutledge walks into a pub and there’s an anti-submarine poster on the wall, the reader feels the war still echoing in that room. I verified that poster existed before describing it, but I didn’t lecture about the U-boats; I let the detail do the talking.”

Check out Charles Todd’s A Christmas Witness here:

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“That realism extends to language. Even within the U.S., dialects vary. Add another country and another century, and it gets even trickier. How do you make the language authentic but still readable?”

“Sparingly. I might include a few turns of phrase or period slang, but clarity always wins. Readers come to be immersed, not to decode. We’re storytellers first. If someone can’t understand a sentence because the dialect is too thick, we’ve lost them. So, I sprinkle just enough flavor to suggest the time and place, never enough to confuse.”

“Have you ever fudged on a historical fact, and how do you decide when that’s okay?”

“All the time…and carefully. Except for A Test of Wills, every book changes the name of the town. That gives me freedom. I might combine two real villages or move a manor house that existed elsewhere because it fits the story. I’ll base things on photographs or records when they exist, but if there’s no documentation, say, no surviving images of a police station’s interior, I create it. The key is plausibility. You don’t turn it into a tiled modern subway station. You imagine what fits the period. When there’s no record, no one can contradict you. It’s oddly liberating.”

“How do you handle outdated beliefs or social attitudes from those times, especially ones that would be offensive today?”

“With restraint and context. For example, in A Fearsome Doubt, Rutledge faces a woman who claims he wrongly executed her husband. That touches the question of capital punishment, but we don’t linger on the morality of it. In 1919, it was an accepted fact: if you were convicted of murder, you were hanged. Today it’s a debate. Back then, it wasn’t. I focus on Rutledge’s conscience, his need to be absolutely certain before accusing anyone. That’s the bridge between their world and ours. We’ve dealt with religion, abortion, class, all through the lens of that era. Understanding the social hierarchy of a small English village helps. In London, the classes rarely mixed; in a village, everyone knows everyone, from the lord of the manor to the rag-and-bone man. Rutledge has to move between both worlds, and his education lets him do that gracefully. It’s a study in empathy more than judgment.”

“You’ve mentioned the importance of detail but also the danger of overdoing it. How do you choose the right details to pull readers in?”

“The ones that characters would naturally notice. If Rutledge walks into a pub in 1920, I’ll mention that they’re drinking ‘government beer,’ the weaker ale introduced during the war. That’s the kind of small, lived-in truth that makes a world believable. But I don’t give a lecture on brewing regulations. A couple of words can carry the whole weight of history. It’s the same with a church. Rutledge might glance around during morning prayers and notice the architecture, but I won’t go into a timeline of who rebuilt it after the fire of 1623. Readers tune out. One vivid impression does the job of a page of exposition.”

“That’s where your worlds feel alive. They’re sparse in just the right way.”

“It’s about rhythm. Give them enough to see, then move. Let them fill in the rest.”

“Is writing in another time period essentially the same as writing any other story, or do you ever worry that the historical limits box you in?”

“Not at all. The limits inspire new stories. Bess Crawford was born because certain plots wouldn’t fit within Rutledge’s role at Scotland Yard. He could only take official cases. But we’d find clues that fascinated us, things a woman, a nurse, or a civilian might encounter, and we needed another character to explore them. A Duty to the Dead began that way: a dying soldier gives Bess a message for his family, and when she delivers it, their reaction makes no sense. That moral puzzle drove the book, and fourteen novels later, it’s still giving me stories.”

“That’s remarkable longevity.”

“The secret is curiosity. Every new book starts with, “What hasn’t Rutledge faced yet?” Sometimes he’s sent out by the chief constable; other times, like in The Gate Keeper, he happens upon a crime by chance. A man in a tuxedo lying dead in the road, a woman in an evening gown beside him—it opens up endless possibilities. The history doesn’t limit you; it focuses you.”

“Writers at Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference often tell me they’ve been researching for years and still haven’t finished their historical novel. They’re afraid to get something wrong. What would you say to them?”

“I’d tell them that the difference between a writer and an author is that an author finishes. Research can become a hiding place. You’ll never know everything. Finish the book anyway. The process of writing teaches you more than research ever will. I’ve known people who tinker for ten years trying to perfect one manuscript. Don’t. Write it, learn from it, move on. Even if it’s terrible, you’ve gained the experience to make the next one better. You can always come back later and fix the first, armed with everything you learned from books two and three. But you can’t revise what you never finish.”

“That’s wisdom hard-earned.”

“It’s the only way to grow. You can’t steer a parked car.”

“When you write about trauma, murders, war, loss, how do you decide how much to show and how much to imply?”

“It’s a fine line. Suggestion is often stronger than description. In A Cold Treachery, the family massacre is so brutal that the policemen refuse to go inside. I didn’t need to show the gore; I only had to describe the men standing under the eaves, unwilling to enter. Readers’ imaginations do the rest. With The Christmas Witness, it was the same. A man believes someone on horseback tried to kill him. The mystery isn’t just physical; was there a horse? It’s psychological: why does he believe he’s marked for death? His fear drives the story more than the act itself.”

“That’s where your work transcends history. It’s not about the era; it’s about being human in any time.”

“That’s the goal. The past is just the stage. The play is always about people.”

_________________________________

Charles Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, the Bess Crawford mysteries, and two stand-alone novels. Originally a mother-and-son writing team, Caroline passed away in August 2021, and Charles lives in Florida. https://charlestodd.com/

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In this interview, Natasha discusses foraying into a new genre with her new historical romantic fantasy, As Many Souls As Stars, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Natasha Siegel
Literary agent: Catherine Cho, Paper Literary
Book title: As Many Souls As Stars
Publisher: William Morrow
Release date: November 25, 2025
Genre/category: Historical Fantasy, Romance
Previous titles: Solomon’s Crown; The Phoenix Bride
Elevator pitch: A gothic and romantic speculative novel about two women—a witch and an immortal demon—who make a Faustian bargain and are drawn into a cat-and-mouse-chase across multiple lifetimes.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I was inspired initially by Marlowe’s Faust—what would a sapphic take on this iconic legend look like? But as I played around with this idea, I realized that the idea of selling your soul had incredible resonance with my experiences as a queer woman, and the novel became a way for me to explore that and make my first foray into fantasy.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I wrote the initial draft of the book during the early pandemic, and it’s coming out in 2025, so about five years! The book changed massively in the process—it started off much more plot driven, harsher, and less romantic. But as I wrote I truly fell in love with the characters, and I realized I wanted to invest much more time and energy into their development and their relationship, to the point where I actually ended up doing a blank-page rewrite. It was a ton of work, but absolutely worth it; I went from considering shelving the manuscript entirely to absolutely adoring it.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

This was a foray into a new genre for me, and so I learnt a lot both during the writing process and during publishing. There’s of course crossover with the audience for my previous historical romances, but one of the most delightful things about it has been getting to chat with and encounter the incredible readers and other writers in the fantasy space! There’s so much incredible innovation happening in this genre and it’s so wonderful to experience it first-hand. It’s also been interesting to see how things like publicity and marketing differ between genres and publishers, too—there’s so much effort and creativity involved for all these teams and seeing their ideas come to life is wonderful.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Apart from deciding to rewrite it from scratch? Since this novel takes place across several different time periods, my research was a complicated but fascinating process. I encountered lots of things that really surprised me and that have surprised readers, too—I’ve had some people tell me they assumed something was inaccurate until they looked it up! Details from the use of glitter in Elizabethan makeup to the excessive smoking at Regency Balls. I learnt so much while writing, and it reminded me why I’ve always been so in love with historical settings.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

On a fundamental level, although this book is very gothic—all about female rage and struggling against patriarchy—I do hope that readers also see the moments of light, too. How love can illuminate something beautiful even in darkness. And I hope it raises some questions, too. What do we owe those who came before us, and those who come after?

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Be stubborn, and maybe even a little conceited. You need to believe in your own work, be confident that it’s worthwhile, because you are the only fundamental consistency in the process—and your love of the craft is what will make it always worth it, regardless of all the noise from outside.

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In this interview, Ayana discusses reimagining Greek mythology with her new novel, I, Medusa, her hope for readers, and more.

Name: Ayana Gray
Literary agent: Peter Knapp — Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management
Book title: I, Medusa
Publisher: Random House
Release date: November 18, 2025
Genre/category: Fiction / Historical / Fantasy
Previous titles: Beasts of Prey (2021), Beasts of Ruin (2022), Beasts of War (2024)
Elevator pitch: I, Medusa is a tragic villain origin story that reimagines the iconic Medusa as a precocious young woman caught amidst the ruthless games of rivaling gods.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I’d always loved Greco-Roman mythology, and always been partial to its villains. One day, a kid on TikTok responded to one of my videos and said (with delight) that my long black locs looked like snakes. Of course, I thought of Medusa. I started thinking about how her story might have looked if she was reimagined as a young Black woman, and learned the classical poets wrote surprisingly little about her backstory. From there, the wheels began to turn very quickly.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I started thinking about this book in 2022, but had ongoing commitments, so I put it to the side for a while. I drafted part of it in 2023 and fully finished it in January 2025. In total, I’ve worked on this project for about three years.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I was unsure how readers would react to such a drastic reimagining of a well-known figure from Greco-Roman mythology, but have been pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of support and excitement. For some, this book has been their introduction to Greek mythology stories, which is an honor.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Though several Greek and Roman poets reference Medusa in ancient text, I was surprised by how little is said about her background and who she was before her demise. I was also surprised by how much of the lore around her is contradictory.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope this story allows new readers to find connection with one of Greco-Roman mythology’s most memorable and perhaps most understood figures. Antiquity may be in some ways distant, but I believe there are still lessons to be learned from the figures and stories that come from it.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Take advantage of your local library, and read as much you can. Read books in the genre you want to write in, and also in genres you don’t. I believe every book can teach you a lesson if you’re willing to learn.

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(How to Turn Your Family Folklore Into Historical Fiction.)

The questions were repetitious and unfeeling. “What’s your name? Where do you live? How old are you?,“ were asked of and answered by Ella and her mother Esther, all over Indian Territory. They traveled by wagon with their children on rough and treacherous terrain from Muskogee to Colbert to Ardmore, to appear before the Commissioners and abide by the law, so that their allotment could be assigned. Some of these trips took days to get there, only to be grueled with the same indignant interrogation. I had to create outlines, sometimes as many as five or six at a time, trying to piece together where they were and how they got there to answer maybe an hour of questioning.

From the outlines, I went to formulated timelines adjacent to these interviews. The written files that had been copied were often out of chronological order, and the only way I could put everything together like a puzzle, was to begin my research on Ancestry and then to further my investigation, I had to invest in the research application of Newspapers.com. Ancestry had over 70 pages of these interviews, and they were chronologically correct. To fill in the writing of what happened in-between these interviews, I had to rely on the newspaper articles of that time period.

Newspaper was the basis for my research and writing process. They told the story if you knew how to use this application. I was not familiar with filtering down my research until I realized that I was just too broad in my scope. I started to narrow down, filtering to particular papers of that time period and area, i.e., the Tishomingo News, The Denison News, The Indian Journal, The Daily Indian Chieftain, and The Purcell Register. By placing names of my ancestors in the research query of these papers, I uncovered some revolutionary stories about my great aunts at Bloomfield school. Newspapers are much more explicit in their storytelling. Especially in that time period, including verbiage of eloquent presentation.

From the Tishomingo News, 1904: “Judge Garrett is a gentleman, in every conceivable sense of the term, a man whose integrity is unimpeachable and unquestioned and possessing among other admirable traits of character the knowledge that he is but a man, while he is a lawyer of exceptional attainments yet is modest and reserved.”

Thus, this type of description gave me the opportunity to build my story into a cinematic introduction to Ella and the people she knew around her.

Aiding in my writing were journals and notes written by my three great aunts: Minnie, Bessie, and Romey. Romey was the last to die in 1982.  I was a young mother then, living in Ohio and teaching at a small regional university. When Aunt Romey died, I flew back to Oklahoma and helped my mother close out her Aunt Romey’s estate. Aunt Romey was poor and lived in Chickasaw housing in Ada, Oklahoma. She had left almost everything to my mother, because she had no children, although she was always known to be extremely close to her half-brother, Houston. Romey was 17 when Houston was born to her mother, Ella, and stepfather, John.

In Romey’s closing of her accounts and paying some bills, my mother and I found numerous journals and old artifacts that helped me understand her life better. She had been married to an oil man, who left her oil leases in Carter County, which in turn went to my mother from Aunt Romey’s wishes in her will. I kept all that I could of what would be very helpful memorabilia for my later writings in my book. I later learned in my research that Houston was raised by Ella but was actually Romey’s child out of wedlock.

Again, research is hard, especially if it is your own family. I would not confess that I often wanted to stop because some of the findings were very painful. I kept reaching out to others on ancestry that would fall under my mother’s side, or Native American side, and I was fortunate to find the great-great-granddaughter of my great-great-grandmother, Esther’s sister Lottie.

Rosemary also lived in Oklahoma where I live now and we would often meet up, sometimes in Oklahoma City at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum and do research together. We met one time at my ranch with a 16-foot roll of butcher paper and began to outline our family tree. There were so many marriages back then. Native women were not widowed long. They felt they needed a man to survive, and once a husband died, from an accident, ill health, or ill-fated demise, they married soon after that. Children were not raised by single parents in that time period.

My next research took me to the mapping department with the Chickasaw Nation. There I was able through my grandfather’s roll number, Harry, and Ella’s roll number. They received roll numbers from the Dawes Commissioners, just like a social security number. The roll number that my grandfather Harry had is my roll number and my children’s roll number. No new roll numbers were ever created after the work of the Dawes Commissioners. The allotment plots of land were vividly displayed with these roll numbers, and I was able to see where this property was located on rocky terrain over by Turner Falls.  My husband and I traveled there and walked around Hickory Creek and found Mountain Lake, which is all a state park now for the city of Ardmore. It was definetly a piece of land that could not take care of crops or feed cattle and horses.

The last phase of my research took me to Ardmore, Oklahoma, to the court clerk’s office to view the records of when and to whom Ella and her son, Harry, sold their allotments. It was there that I discovered the scoundrel who purchased their property and within a few days it was recorded being sold again to another man for one dollar. It was obvious a middleman was being dishonest in order to obtain their property.  From that moment my writing flourished with a grit of anger. It was obvious that many men saw her as less, but it never broke her spirit.

Where Birds Land evolved into not just an historical fiction, but a testimony of identity and survival from Indian territory to Oklahoma statehood. I wanted not only to honor my great-grandmother’s story, but every First American who carried history on their shoulders and was never written into it.

Check out Mary Ruth Barnes’ Where Birds Land here:

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