Historical Fiction: Unpacked

Listen to my conversation with Award-winning WWII author Linda Thompson. We discuss Linda's debut novel, The Plum Blooms in Winter, as well as her upcoming release of The Mulberry Leaf Whispers on December 15! Linda's novels focus on WWII in the Japanese theater.

We talk about the concerning trend of cancel culture and the unfortunate side-effects of canceling history. Our discussion also winds around to the Japanese internment camps in the U.S. and some of the mistakes our nation has made. 

Purchase The Plum Blooms in Winter on Bookshop.org (affiliate).

Purchase The Plum Blooms in Winter on Amazon (affiliate).

Check out all the preorder goodies Linda is offering with The Mulberry Leaf Whispers.

Preorder on Bookshop.org (affiliate).

Preorder on Amazon (affiliate). 

Available for a limited time, the link to the exclusive ebook novelette for my listeners!

Click Here: A Matter of Mind and Heart

Here's the description–

1944:  Recruited from an internment camp for Japanese Americans, army linguist Rich Takahashi grapples with a key question. Why should he put his life at risk for an America that robbed him of his future, and his family and his sweetheart of their freedom? What makes an American, an American?

Visit Linda's Website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Sharing a quick episode with you. It's just yours truly, sharing my favorite historical fiction books of 2020! Find these books, and others, at my affiliate shop on Bookshop.org. https://bookshop.org/shop/unpacked

The deadline for standard shipping in time for Christmas is December 5!!!

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

 

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Listen to Alison's chat with Kimberly Duffy, author of historical fiction, homeschooling momma of four, lover of travel, history, and food. We talk about Kim's debut novel, A Mosaic of Wings, which is set in India, the time Kim spent living and working in India herself, and her special love of this country. We also discuss Kim's path to publication and what it's like to launch your debut novel during a pandemic.

Purchase A Mosaic of Wings at Bookshop.org (affiliate).

Or purchase on Amazon (affiliate). 

Preorder Kim's next book, A Tapestry of Light on Bookshop.org (affiliate).

Or preorder on Amazon (affiliate).

Find Kim on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

 

Also mentioned:

JSTOR–a wonderful site for research!

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Last year, S. Daniel Smith released his sequel to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The title of his novella is Saving Ebenezer: The Continuing Saga of a Man Named Scrooge. Dan talks with Alison about the inspiration for this book, his research process, and the importance of finding hope in Jesus, rather than in our own good works.

This week only--the Kindle version of Saving Ebenezer is on sale until November 30! You can get your copy for 99 cents at this affiliate link.

If you don't have a copy, you can purchase A Christmas Carol on Amazon (affiliate).

Dan's website and Facebook. 

Also mentioned:

Thomas Umstaddt Jr. and his Novel Marketing Podcast. 

Author James L. Rubart used to be part of the Novel Marketing Podcast, and he still helps teach Author Media's course, The Five Year Plan to Becoming a Bestselling Author. 

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Award-winning historical fiction novelist Regina Scott took readerson a journey to the Grand Canyon in A Distance Too Grand, the first book inthe American Wonders Collection. Now Scott returns with a new expedition toYellowstone in Nothing Short of Wondrous.

Alison and Regina talk about the American Wonders Collections, the history of our nation's national parks, and Regina's inspiration for this series.

Purchase Nothing Short of Wondrous on Amazon (affiliate link).

Check out the American Wonders Collection (affiliate).

Regina's website and Facebook. 

Also mentioned:

At Love's Command by Karen Witemeyer (affiliate)

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Alison talks with Appalachian author Sarah Loudin Thomas about her rich heritage, the miracles that always find a way into her novels, her propensity for storytelling, and the role that deafness plays in her latest book, The Right Kind of Fool, which released November 3. Here's a summary of the new novel:

Thirteen-year-old Loyal Raines is supposed to stay close to home on a hot summer day in 1934. When he slips away for a quick swim in the river and finds a dead body, he wishes he’d obeyed his mother. The ripples caused by his discovery will impact the town of Beverly, West Virginia, in ways no one could have imagined.

The first person those ripples disturb is Loyal’s absentee father. When Creed Raines realized his infant son was deaf, he headed for the hills, returning only to help meet his family’s basic needs. But when Loyal, now a young teen, stumbles upon a murder it’s his father he runs to, tell–shaping the words with his hands. As Creed is pulled into the investigation, he discovers that what sets his son apart isn’t his inability to hear but rather his courage. Longing to reclaim the life he abandoned, Creed will have to do more than help solve a murder if he wants to win his family’s hearts again.

Head to Sassafras on Sutton for more information about Sarah's Zoom book launch event with Lisa Wingate next Thursday, November 19, at 7pm (EST). You can also purchase The Right Kind of Fool from Sarah's favorite independent bookstore by following that link.

If you prefer to purchase the book from Amazon, please use my affiliate link by clicking here.

Sarah's website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Also mentioned:

Mamie Thurman (the murder that inspired The Right Kind of Fool)

The Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster (a plot point in Sarah's next novel)

Lisa Wingate's books Before We Were Yours and The Book of Lost Friends (affiliate links).

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Amy Lynn Green is a lifelong lover of books, history, and library cards. She worked in publishing for six years before writing her first historical fiction novel, based on the WWII homefront of Minnesota, the state where she lives, works, and survives long winters.

Things We Didn't Say released this past Tuesday, November 3! In this episode, Alison and Amy talk about the epistolary format of this book and how Amy's love of letter-writing impacted the decision to write her novel entirely in letters. They also discuss the POW camps that brought German soldiers to rural Minnesota and the top-secret Military Intelligence School's Japanese language program, where mainly Japanese-American students trained as diplomats, negotiators, and spies. 

Purchase Things We Didn't Say on Amazon (affiliate).

Find an indie bookstore at IndieBound.

The London Restoration by Rachel McMillan (affiliate)

Amy's website and Instagram.

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Jane Kirkpatrick is the New York Times and CBA bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty books, Her works have won the WILLA Literary Award, the Carol Award forHistorical Fiction, and the 2016 Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award. 

Alison and Jane discuss Jane's latest novel, Something Worth Doing, which tells the story of real-life suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway fighting for women's rights in the 1800s. 

Purchase Something Worth Doing on Amazon (affiliate) or on Jane's website.

Path Breaking: An Autobiographical History of the Equal Suffrage Movement in Pacific Coast States by Abigail Scott Duniway (affiliate)

Jane's website and Facebook page.

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Jan Drexler brings a unique understanding of Amish traditions and beliefs to herwriting. Her ancestors were among the first Amish, Mennonite, and Brethrenimmigrants to Pennsylvania in the 1700s, and their experiences are the inspirationfor her stories. Jan lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband,where she enjoys hiking and spending time with her expanding family. Her latest book, Softly Blows the Bugle, released October 20! It's the final installment in her Amish of Weaver's Creek series. 

Listen in as Alison and Jan talk about Jan's writing, her Amish roots, and the message Jan hopes to get across in all of her novels.

Purchase Softly Blows the Bugle on Amazon (affiliate).

The Amish of Weaver's Creek series (affiliate)

Jan's website, Facebook, Pinterest, Goodreads.

Also mentioned:

Alison's novel set at the beginning of the Civil War: One Traveler (affiliate).

Ken Follett's books (affiliate)

Aiming for Love by Mary Conneally (affiliate)

Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and A Little Princess (affiliate links)

(Side note: Those editions of Burnett's classics are illustrated by one of Alison's favorite children's book illustrators, Tasha Tudor.)

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Joanna Davidson Politano's latest book, The Love Note, released this past Tuesday! Alison and Joanna discuss the struggle it was to pen this story of a love letter that never reached the intended recipient as well as how Joanna got started as a writer. Spoiler: She had to give up her dream in order to rediscover the joy of writing. This conversation is packed with so much richness. 

Joanna Davidson Politano is the award-winning author of Lady Jayne Disappears, ARumored Fortune, and Finding Lady Enderly (affiliate links). When she’s not homeschooling her small children, she spends much of her time spinning tales that capture the colorful, exquisite details in ordinary lives. She is always on the hunt for random acts of kindness, people willing to share their deepest secrets with a stranger, and hidden stashes of sweets. She lives with her husband and their two children in a house in the woods near Lake Michigan.

 

Joanna's website and Facebook, and Twitter.

Purchase Joanna's latest book, The Love Note, at one of these links:

Amazon (affiliate)

Baker Book House (The Publisher–possible sales!)

Also mentioned:

Mesu Andrews on "Historical Fiction: Unpacked"

Elizabeth Byler Younts' books The Solace of Water and The Bright Unknown (affiliate links)

Tessa Afshar's book A Pearl in the Sand (affiliate)

Be sure to visit Alison’s Instagram, Facebook, and website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!