Historical fiction, including historical romance -- and yes, it's included

 I've finally reached the last of the genres I write. (Will I write in other genres at some point? I can't see myself writing horror, but I wouldn't bet too much that it'll never happen....) Here are my works of historical fiction, including my probably-ongoing historical romance series. As with my other books, you can probably have your local bookstore order them, but I'm including some purchase links.

I'll start with my most recent novel in this category -- one based on a crucial moment in family's history, and yet focusing on a man my father and uncles met for only a few minutes. They never knew his name, let alone how to explain the blatant contradictions they observed in his appearance and behavior. So I set out to imagine some answers.

"A Life of Contradictions, and A Moment of Truth

It is autumn of 1938, in Hitler’s Germany, in the capital city of Berlin, perhaps a month before the devastating anti-Jewish violence of Kristallnacht. Three Jewish boys have received new bicycles — because their family has, with difficulty, arranged to leave Germany, and they will not be allowed to take much cash with them. Two of the boys are experienced bicyclists, but the youngest is less so. On a downtown street, the latter’s lack of skill causes an accident. And the traffic policeman on the scene wears, just visible under his uniform, the brown shirt of a member of Hitler's storm troopers.

"What did the policeman do? The answer is known, because the preceding paragraph describes an actual event. But why did the policeman make the choice he did? What life did he live that led him to make it? And what happened to him, while the boys and their family escaped, lived, and thrived? This novel imagines possible answers to these questions. In doing so, it takes the reader into the heart of the experience of wartime, and the repercussions of such conflict for years thereafter."

You can order this book from Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

On to my Cowbird Creek series, with a short detour: on what basis do I include "historical romance" in the historical fiction genre? Besides the most obvious reasons -- "historical" in the genre label and a setting in the past (not, by the way, an alternate past, which would make it "alternate history"), there's the nature of the writing process. I don't believe there's a way to write good historical romance without plenty of research into the place and time in which the story is set. (One can, to some extent, piggyback on the work previous writers have done, but there are risks in relying on someone else's research too much.) The Decision and my Cowbird Creek books have back matter describing the extensive research I've done for that book. I used to list all my sources, including every website I consulted, but the lists got so long they were increasing the printing costs for the books, so I now ask readers who are sufficiently interested in the sources to get in touch with me.

If you read much historical romance, you probably know that a series in this subgenre typically revolves around either a particular family or a particular place. In the case of Cowbird Creek, that's the fictional small town in southeastern Nebraska that gives the series its name. It's also common for the names of the books in a series to be related in some way, and mine all use the format "What [verb] the Heart" -- starting with What Heals the Heart.

"Can they help each other heal?

"Joshua Gibbs survived the Civil War, building on his wartime experiences to become a small town doctor. And if he wakes from nightmares more often than he would like, only his dog Major is there to know it.

"Then two newcomers arrive in Cowbird Creek: Clara Brook, a plain-speaking and yet enigmatic farmer’s daughter, and Freida Blum, an elderly Jewish widow from New York. Freida knows just what Joshua needs: a bride. But it shouldn’t be Clara Brook!

"Joshua tries everything he can think of to discourage Freida’s efforts, including a wager: if he can find Freida a husband, she’ll stop trying to find him a wife. Will either matchmaker succeed? Or is it Clara, despite her own scars, who can heal the doctor’s troubled heart?"

Joshua and Clara appear in the succeeding books to a greater or lesser extent, and a couple of secondary characters in this book take center stage in those later books. While the books all have a setting in common, and are all romances (including the essential element of the probable Happy Ever After), they also feature different psychological and societal issues. Joshua Gibbs, as the above description shows, suffers from PTSD. The key male character in What Frees the Heart has a physical disability, while the key female character is in a shunned profession. The female lead in What Shows the Heart is in a related profession, and the male lead carries a serious amount of guilt over past actions. (The story also falls within the subgenre of "second chances.") What Wakes the Heart features both sexual harassment and religious differences.

I was hoping to use just one set of purchase links for the whole series, but it turns out the pattern of which retailers carry which of the books is somewhat erratic. So here are the book names and the links for each.

What Heals the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Walmart Business, Mighty Ape (New Zealand) 

What Frees the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Walmart Business, Waterstones (UK), Mighty Ape (New Zealand)

What Shows the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Walmart Business, Waterstones (UK) 

What Wakes the Heart: Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart Business, Waterstones (UK), Mighty Ape (New Zealand)

Well, that's the lot! If you're shopping for books this holiday season, I hope you'll look at some of the books I've highlighted in these posts. Merry holidays!