Historical Novels & Short Stories

from The Deepening world of fiction

Book Review: Pemberly Remembered

Celia Hayes | November 16, 2009

Pemberley Remembered, by Mary Lydon Simonsen,  is actually three separate love stories and a small mystery, all braided together. The mystery and the love stories are centered around a lovely 18th century  Derbyshire mansion; is Montclair the model for Pemberley, and were it’s original owners, one William Lacey and his wife, Elizabeth Garrison Lacy the [...]

More Like Mr. Darcy, Less Like Shane

Celia Hayes | October 15, 2009

The front of the Alamo is instantly recognizable; almost like a stage set. Everybody knows the bed-stead outline with what would have been a pair of towers on either side, a pair of shell-supported niches on either side of the door, and the window over it … were there ever statues in those niches? I’ve [...]

Ghost Town on the Gulf

Celia Hayes | September 9, 2009

Once there was a town on the Texas Gulf Coast, which during its hey-day— which lasted barely a half-century from start to finish—rivaled Galveston, a hundred and fifty miles east. It started as a stretch of beach along Matagorda Bay, called Indian Point, some miles to the north, selected for no other [...]

A Civil General – David Stinebeck & Scannel Gill: Book Review

Celia Hayes | September 1, 2009

Called “The Rock of Chickamauga” for holding the center of the Union line in that Civil War battle, and prevention a defeat from dissolving into a disastrous rout,  George Henry Thomas was famous in his lifetime, worshiped and respected in equal parts by the officers and men that he commanded. He is still held in [...]