Blog Tour Guest Post: The Secret Life of Mrs. London by Rebecca Rosenberg

Please join me in welcoming Rebecca Rosenberg to Let Them Read Books! Rebecca is touring the blogosphere with her debut historical fiction novel, The Secret Life of Mrs. London, and I'm thrilled to have her here today with a little teaser about the real-life love triangle you never knew about! Read on and enter to win a paperback copy of The Secret Life of Mrs. London!

San Francisco, 1915. As America teeters on the brink of world war, Charmian and her husband, famed novelist Jack London, wrestle with genius and desire, politics and marital competitiveness. Charmian longs to be viewed as an equal partner who put her own career on hold to support her husband, but Jack doesn’t see it that way…until Charmian is pulled from the audience during a magic show by escape artist Harry Houdini, a man enmeshed in his own complicated marriage. Suddenly, charmed by the attention Houdini pays her and entranced by his sexual magnetism, Charmian’s eyes open to a world of possibilities that could be her escape.

As Charmian grapples with her urge to explore the forbidden, Jack’s increasingly reckless behavior threatens her dedication. Now torn between two of history’s most mysterious and charismatic figures, she must find the courage to forge her own path, even as she fears the loss of everything she holds dear.

“Charming Houdini, I shall never forget him…” Charmian London’s diary, 1916.

How do two of the most iconic men in America in the early 1900s, Houdini and Jack London, fall in love with the same woman, Charmian Kittredge London?

Harry Houdini and Jack London

The Great Harry Houdini had transformed himself from a poor magician in Coney Island to a world-renowned escape artist who challenged police chiefs and prison wardens around the world to lock him in their strongest jails, safes, handcuffs, and locks—Houdini would always escape their strongest shackles.

And Jack London was the most popular, well-paid author in America, writing fifty books in twenty years. Adventure novels such as Call of the Wild and White Fang, to scathing political novels such as People of the Abyss and Iron Heel, to socialist statement novels The Valley of the Moon and Martin Eden.

Jack and Charmian working together

Yet Charmian London captured both men’s passion. Charmian was a modern, adventurous woman.
She was college educated and worked as a writer, editor, and typist when she met budding novelist Jack London. She read and reviewed his first novel, and their partnership was born. Jack would tell his stories, and Charmian would type them up at 100 words per minute, later editing for him. Their equal working relationship was extraordinarily productive, producing 1000 words a day. Their marriage was a modern model of equality, so much so, they called each other “Mate” instead of darling or sweetheart.

Blog Tour Review: The Lost Season of Love and Snow by Jennifer Laam

From the Back Cover:

The unforgettable story of Alexander Pushkin’s beautiful wife, Natalya, a woman much admired at Court, and how she became reviled as the villain of St. Petersburg.

At the age of sixteen, Natalya Goncharova is stunningly beautiful and intellectually curious. But while she finds joy in French translations and a history of Russian poetry, her family is more concerned with her marriage prospects. It is only fitting that during the Christmas of 1828 at her first public ball in her hometown of Moscow she attracts the romantic attention of Russia’s most lauded rebel poet: Alexander Pushkin. 

Enchanted at first sight, Natalya is already a devoted reader of Alexander’s serialized novel in verse, Evgeny Onegin. The most recently published chapter ends in a duel, and she is dying to learn what happens next. Finding herself deeply attracted to Alexander’s intensity and joie de vivre, Natalya hopes to see him again as soon as possible.

What follows is a courtship and later marriage full of equal parts passion and domestic bliss but also destructive jealousies. When vicious court gossip leads to Alexander dying from injuries earned defending his honor as well as Natalya’s in a duel, Natalya finds herself reviled for her alleged role in his death. 

With beautiful writing and understanding, Jennifer Laam, and her compelling new novel, The Lost Season of Love and Snow, help Natalya tell her side of the story—the story of her greatest love and her inner struggle to create a fulfilling life despite the dangerous intrigues of a glamorous imperial Court.

My Thoughts:

I knew nothing about Alexander Pushkin other than that he was a famous poet, I knew nothing about his wife or that he died in a duel defending her honor, so of course once I saw the blurb for The Lost Season of Love and Snow, I had to read it. What a subject for a novel!

Despite being bound by the constraints of historical fact, this is very much a character-driven story. In the prologue, I was a bit put off by Natalya. Her husband has literally just breathed his last breath and all she can think about is how she is going to repair her reputation. But I told myself that I did not yet know what had happened to make this her first reaction, and as her past unfolds, the way her light is dimmed by the expectations of marriage and society, the way she bears the blame for the transgressions of others, the way she is robbed of her own destiny, witnessing her despair and regret, I could not help but feel for her.

We first meet young Natalya as an idealistic sixteen-year-old whose love for romantic novels shapes her expectations of love and courtship. A celebrated yet humble beauty with writing aspirations of her own, she catches the eye of Russia's favorite poet shortly after her introduction into society and quickly weaves grand dreams around a life with him. Eventually she will get that life, and though it will bring her passion and love, it will also bring her disappointment and heartbreak. The pressure of being Russia's greatest poet often takes a toll on Alexander, and Natalya often finds herself putting her husband's needs above her own. Never achieving the success she hoped for with her own attempts at writing, she begins to indulge in what she thinks are innocent pleasures where she can find them, mainly amidst the glittering and "courtly love" atmosphere of St. Petersburg society, where she has become the belle of the ball. But she unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will forever alter not only her own life, but the landscape of Russian literature.

Book Blast! The Dark Lady's Mask by Mary Sharratt

The Dark Lady's Mask by Mary Sharratt

Publication Date: April 19, 2016

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hardcover, eBook, Audio Book

Genre: Historical Fiction

READ AN EXCERPT.

Shakespeare in Love meets Shakespeare’s Sister in this novel of England’s first professional woman poet and her collaboration and love affair with William Shakespeare.

London, 1593. Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy, but a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything.

Aemilia grabs at the chance to pursue her long-held dream of writing and the two outsiders strike up a literary bargain. They leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country — and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last and their collaborative affair comes to a devastating end. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense and in defense of all women.

The Dark Lady’s Mask gives voice to a real Renaissance woman in every sense of the word.

The Dark Lady’s Mask will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon (Hardcover) | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Advance Praise

“An exquisite portrait of a Renaissance woman pursuing her artistic destiny in England and Italy, who may — or may not — be Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.” — MARGARET GEORGE, internationally bestselling author of Elizabeth I

“Perfectly chosen details and masterful characterization bring to life this swiftly moving, elegant story. As atmospheric and compelling as it is wise, The Dark Lady’s Mask is a gem not to be missed.” — LYNN CULLEN, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and Twain’s End

“Mary Sharratt’s enchanting new novel, The Dark Lady’s Mask, is a richly imagined, intensely romantic and meticulously researched homage to lauded poet, Aemilia Bassano Lanyer, an accomplished woman of letters who many believe to be Shakespeare’s Eternal Muse. Sharratt unfolds a captivating tale, a compelling ‘what if ’ scenario, of a secret union that fed the creative fires of England’s greatest poet and playwright.” — KATHLEEN KENT, bestselling author of The Heretic’s Daughter

Blog Tour Review: The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

From the Back Cover:

At the beginning of this powerful novel, we meet Aurore Dupin as she is leaving her estranged husband, a loveless marriage, and her family’s estate in the French countryside to start a new life in Paris. There, she gives herself a new name—George Sand—and pursues her dream of becoming a writer, embracing an unconventional and even scandalous lifestyle.

Paris in the nineteenth century comes vividly alive, illuminated by the story of the loves, passions, and fierce struggles of a woman who defied the confines of society. Sand’s many lovers and friends include Frédéric Chopin, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Liszt, Eugène Delacroix, Victor Hugo, Marie Dorval, and Alfred de Musset. As Sand welcomes fame and friendship, she fights to overcome heartbreak and prejudice, failure and loss. Though considered the most gifted genius of her time, she works to reconcile the pain of her childhood, of disturbing relationships with her mother and daughter, and of her intimacies with women and men. Will the life she longs for always be just out of reach—a dream?

Brilliantly written in luminous prose, and with remarkable insights into the heart and mind of a literary force, The Dream Lover tells the unforgettable story of a courageous, irresistible woman.

My Thoughts:

I was eagerly anticipating this novel of groundbreaking French author George Sand's life. I confess I did not know much about her beforehand, other than that she was a famous writer and that she had a relationship with Frederic Chopin, one of my favorite composers. I've been on a roll lately with good fiction about women in history, and so I couldn't wait to dig in.

The story begins as an older and ailing George reflects on her life, and then takes us back to alternating scenes from her childhood and the years when she strikes out for Paris on her own after leaving her husband. Aurore, as she was known in the beginning, is a sympathetic woman, one who survived a "poor little rich girl" upbringing and an unhappy marriage to find the courage to seize opportunity and make her own dreams come true. She is fortunate in that she finds success very early on, and this paves the way for her to command her own destiny and live her life on her own terms, which included dressing as a man for the freedom and simplicity of the clothing, smoking cigars, sitting at the "men's table" with various stars of the literary and art scene in Paris, running her beloved country estate, dictating how her children were to be raised and educated, and seeking affection from a multitude of lovers.

Spotlight: Stevenson's Treasure by Mark Wiederanders

 
Publication Date: February 23, 2014
Publisher: Fireship Press
Formats: eBook, Paperback

Genre: Historical Fiction

READ AN EXCERPT.

STEVENSON’S TREASURE is a fictional but carefully researched story about the year Robert Louis Stevenson leaves all that is safe in Scotland and journeys to California on what has to be one of the most romantic, ill-advised but successful quests a literary figure has ever made. Unknown and in shaky health, the 29-year-old writer in the summer of 1879 crosses the Atlantic by steamer and the American continent by rail. His objective is scandalous: to make an American art student he met in France, Fanny Osbourne, his wife despite the facts that she is already married (unhappily), has children and is ten years older than him. Showing up on her Monterey doorstep half-dead from several ailments, “Louis” nonetheless proposes marriage. Although her heart longs to say “yes,” she turns him down for a variety of practical reasons. Louis finds cheap lodgings nearby and vows to stay as long as it takes to overcome her objections. In their year-long struggle to somehow have a future together, Louis and Fanny must contend not just with his abysmal health but his inability to sell his writing, her handsome but philandering husband, a contentious teenage daughter and a skeptical ten-year-old son. From this mixture, stirred on a palette of landscapes that include France, Monterey, San Francisco, Calistoga and the Highlands of Scotland comes a more complete triumph than Stevenson had hoped for…

Praise for Stevenson's Treasure

“With intricately-rendered characters, rich international historical settings, and a warm humor simmering throughout its pages, STEVENSON’S TREASURE reminds us that while pirates, buried treasure, and split personalities can captivate, there is no adventure quite like the deep longing of the human heart.” – Kim Culbertson, Northern California Book Award Winner for Instructions for a Broken Heart.

Spotlight: The Last Conception by Gabriel Constans

Passionate embryologist, Savarna Sikand, is in a complicated relationship, with two different women, when she is told that she MUST have a baby. Her East Indian American parents are desperate for her to conceive, in spite of her "not being married". They insist that she is the last in line of a great spiritual lineage. In the process of choosing her lover and having doubts about her ability, or desire to conceive, Savarna begins to question the necessity of biology and lineage within her parents' beliefs and becomes forever fascinated with the process of conception and the definition of family. Threads of Dan Brown (DaVinci Code), Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Sister of My Heart) and the film The Kids Are All Right, flavor this colorful tale of awakening, romance and mystery.


Praise for The Last Conception


Gabriel Constans' inspiring new novel delves into the framework of our purpose in life; explores the tenuous balance between destiny and personal truth and the struggle we undergo when those forces are at odds. Constans weaves the two together seamlessly and in the end, we are certain that love surpasses tradition, destiny and our own selfish wants. --Syd Parker, best-selling author of Secrets of the Heart, Love’s Abiding Spirit and Immediate Possession

Often, when tradition and technology meet they collide without forgiveness. Gabriel Constans manages to bring these opposites together with an open heart and the result is a story of compassion, love and the gifts that a generous partnership can provide. --Joan Tewkesbury, award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist