Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

What I’ve Been Up To: January & February

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– writing –

I’ve been working on the first draft of a new novel since the beginning of January. It’s something a bit different than anything I’ve written yet…and I’m pretty excited about it…but I don’t feel ready to talk more about it just yet. I decided I wanted to get to a certain point in the first draft before I shared anything about it or shared any snippets, and I hope to reach that point by next month at least. So, stay tuned…

On an already-published note, I recently released Bridge to Trouble as an ebook at Amazon, Kobo, et al. It came about after Goodreads deleted the book page on the grounds that the title wasn’t available anywhere but for free through my website; and I eventually decided that having it for sale would be a good thing in more than one way, in that it would give readers more of a choice as to how they wanted to get the book. New subscribers to my email list still have an option to download Bridge to Trouble for free, but anyone who wants to read the book yet doesn’t care to subscribe can buy it at their favorite ebook retailer.

– reading –

I’ve been so focused on writing that I actually haven’t read very much this month! That does tend to happen with me: I’ll go through spurts where I’m really involved with a project and don’t read as much, and then read a ton when between projects or in a more relaxed stage of the writing/editing process. I have been re-reading a couple of favorites, though. I’ve been slowly working through Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker since before the holidays, and it’s the kind of book with enough depth in it that you take away new thoughts when you revisit it at different points in your life. The chapter “Problem Picture” certainly yielded more now that I’ve read Gaudy Night—which was amazing, by the way, perhaps even more so as a deep and meditative novel than as a mystery. I should mention that that chapter in The Mind of the Maker includes complete plot spoilers for it, which I inadvertently ran smack into on my first reading years ago. I think perhaps since I already knew the basic solution of the mystery when I read Gaudy Night, I was more tuned in to the character development and philosophical themes of the book.

I’m also re-reading Georgette Heyer’s The Unknown Ajax, and oh my, I’m rediscovering why it’s one of my favorites of hers—top three or maybe even top two now. It was one that I liked just moderately when I first read it, but it’s grown on me since, especially this time around. It’s delightful and hilarious and that long climactic scene is just a brilliant piece of writing. In the right hands it would make an awesome movie, by the way.

– listening –

Mainly the playlist for my WIP…which is also a subject for another day. But one of my recent discoveries while listening to classical music radio was a charming waltz by English composer Eric Coates, “Dance of the Orange Blossoms.” I went on YouTube to look it up again afterwards, and of course ended up hopping to another video of a Coates composition and then another, and I think I’m going to enjoy listening to more of his work!

Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned the Petersens on here before—they’re an amazing family bluegrass band I discovered a little over a year ago, and their music is wonderful. Just about everything on their YouTube channel is worth a listen, but a few of my favorites are “Sweet Beulah Land,” “Landslide,” “Carolina in the Pines,” “You’re Still the One,” “Moments,” and “Amarillo by Morning.” They also have several full live concerts on there which include most of their best songs, including some I just mentioned.

– otherwise –

I finally have a working computer of my own again! I got it for Christmas, actually, but there was a tiny flaw in the screen, so we had to exchange it, and…the second one had an issue with the keyboard, so we had to exchange it again. And then had to spend a couple of weeks after the third one arrived trying to get hold of Microsoft customer service for help with a software issue, and that’s about as easy to do as getting an audience with an emperor. But the kinks are all worked out at last, and I can once more use a word processor and check my email without having to borrow a computer from a long-suffering family member.

I’ve been taking a hiatus from Twitter while working on my new novel, and I think it’s done me good. I haven’t decided exactly what I want to do with my social media moving forward, but even if I don’t leave Twitter I’ll probably spend less time there. In that case I’d like to try and focus more on my newsletter and on this blog (perhaps post a little more regularly, even if not super-often). I’ve also been having fun getting a little more involved with the bookish community on Instagram, so if you’re on there stop by and check out my posts sometime! My username is @elisabethgfoley there, as with most places.

photo credit: me

My Year In Books: 2020

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My total number of books read was slightly lower this year than my usual average—according to my record book it was 82, and Goodreads puts it even lower because I didn’t bother to log every single re-read there. Though I suppose I theoretically had more time to read, I very often found it hard to focus, which may also account for the high number of re-reads in this year’s total: about 18.

For the past few years I’ve included the titles that made my top-ten list in my yearly roundup, but this year, I frankly have just enough energy to produce a roundup post at all, so I’m going to keep it fairly short and sweet. My top-ten list is here. If you’re interested in the full list of books I logged on Goodreads, you can see it here; meanwhile as usual, I’ll hit the main highlights in this post.

Because there were so many re-reads, and most of them have appeared in previous years’ roundup or top-ten posts, I won’t go over them exhaustively, but I must mention a couple standouts that I revisited for the first time in years: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell moved even higher in my estimation on this re-read and cemented a place among my favorite classics; and The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse was so much funnier than I remembered.

New-to-me classics were represented by a couple of plays that I greatly enjoyed: Much Ado About Nothing made Beatrice and Benedick my favorite Shakespeare characters; and Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich von Schiller was surprisingly fun and interesting. (The biggest surprise was probably that the famous apple scene was not the end of the story, as I’d always assumed.) The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton was…well, I’m not sure what it was. It began as brilliant and ended as bewildering, and I think I’ll have to read it again sometime to try and figure out exactly what G.K. was trying to say (if he knew himself).

My nonfiction reading was mostly history, as usual. I read a couple of interesting biographies—Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas, and Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey by Nicola Tallis. Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode For Wells Fargo in the Wild West by John Boessenecker and A Cowboy Detective by Charles A. Siringo (okay, okay, Charlie’s subtitle is too long to inflict on you here even in comparison to the rest) carry us over into…

…westerns! The Proud Sheriff by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Amelia Rankin by Charles O. Locke, Van Patten by B.M. Bower, and A Trooper Galahad by Charles King were all moderately enjoyable. I also read Luke Short for the first time this year and was rather surprised both with the quality of the writing and the historical grounding of the plots. They’re pretty hard-bitten and action-centered, but depend far less on the face-down gun duel than, for instance, does L’Amour. Where the Wind Blows Free and The Whip were the standouts of the few I read.

Mysteries, as I mentioned in my top-ten post, formed a major part of my reading this year. Aside from the ones that made the top-ten list, these were some of the highlights: Dead Man’s Quarry by Ianthe Jerrold, Henrietta Who? by Catherine Aird, S.S. Murder by Q. Patrick, Traitor’s Purse by Margery Allingham. Touch and Go by Patricia Wentworth was fun mystery-suspense, though with a rather fizzly ending; Vultures in the Sky by Todd Downing was a very well-crafted train mystery set in 1930s Mexico, but somewhat more grim and almost morbid than I was in the mood for when I read it.

(While we’re on the subject of mysteries, I have to say that Hide in the Dark by Frances Noyes Hart was probably the biggest disappointment of the year. It has some competition from The Golden Unicorn by Phyllis A. Whitney, but Hart’s was probably worse because I had higher hopes for it!)

One book I meant to review, but never did, was The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse, a historical novel set during the Huguenot persecutions in 16th-century France. I was excited to read it because I feel like this is a fascinating and under-utilized period for historical fiction; and it was indeed very well-written and vivid in its evocation of the setting. However, the threads of the plot involving the book’s villains featured way more violence and sexual content than I care for (verging on the downright bizarre by the end). Also, while the depiction of Huguenot beliefs was decently accurate, the book of course focuses far more on the political than theological conflict, and can’t quite escape the lack of basic understanding that one always finds in depictions of Christianity by secular writers. So I finished it with mixed feelings.

And finally, miscellaneously, Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck, Olivia in India by O. Douglas, Half Portions by Edna Ferber, and The Blue Envelope by Sophie Kerr.

Previous years’ reading roundups: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

photo credit: Ylanite Koppens / Pixabay

Top Ten Books Read in 2020

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So. What a year that was, huh? Happily, good books are one of the constants of life, and I am very thankful to have had them this year for comfort, inspiration, and yes, distraction. When it came time to put this list together I noted with some amusement how heavy it is on mystery fiction—mysteries are one of my “comfort read” genres, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my reading habits leaned heavily in that direction in 2020.

Per usual, I’m linking up with Top Ten Tuesday as I share my top ten books read this year—listed here in the order read:

Penny Plain by O. Douglas

It’s always hard to describe a book that you can’t pigeonhole neatly into a genre category—a book that’s simply about a family, a neighborhood, friendships, and two different love stories. It’s also sometimes hard to accurately describe a book that meant a lot to you. All I know is that this one dropped into my lap during a very difficult week of my life, and it was a lifeline. It made me cry, made me smile, made me highlight passages that jumped out at me. It’s just one of those books that seems to celebrate the beauty of life in spite of sorrow or daily cares. I don’t know if you can ever objectively rate a book after such a strong emotional attachment to it, but be that as it may, Penny Plain goes down as my favorite book of the year.


Holiday With Violence by Ellis Peters

While on holiday in Italy, a group of English young people become involved in a mystery when a fellow-traveler they’d befriended is attacked on a train. Their trip turns into a delicate game of cat-and-mouse over mountains and through the canals of Venice, with a set of criminals determined to recover something that has accidentally come into the young tourists’ possession, in a highly entertaining novel that leans more toward suspense than straight detective work.


Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham

I have a love-hate relationship with Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion series. Perhaps “hate” is too strong a word, but I’ve enjoyed a couple and been unenthused by the others—not because Allingham isn’t a good writer, but because she so often chooses to write about nasty, off-putting characters. Sweet Danger, though, is quite different: it’s also more of a romping suspense thriller than a whodunit, complete with treasure hunt, tiny fictional country, and charmingly eccentric characters—proving that Allingham can write delightful people when she so chooses! (In fact, I picked it up entirely on the strength of one character who had appeared in a later novel I read, The Fashion in Shrouds.)


Deadly Duo: Two Novellas by Margery Allingham

And what do you know, here’s Allingham again. This isn’t a series book but a pair of standalone novellas, both excellently written with vivid characters and abundant suspense (the plot of the first story, “Wanted: Someone Innocent” is particularly clever and unusual).


Crowning Heaven by Emily Hayse

This one is probably the most unlikely title to make my top ten, for the simple reason that it’s not my usual type of fiction—planetary fantasy with a contemporary protagonist traveling between worlds. I’d expected to like Hayse’s The Last Atlantean better because of its historical element, but to my surprise, Crowning Heaven surpassed it. Even though I didn’t connect as much to the imaginary world as I typically do to a real-world setting, this novel gripped and moved me chiefly because of its wonderful characters and the depth of their emotions and relationships.


The Will and the Deed by Ellis Peters

A group of travelers end up snowbound in an Austrian village over Christmas when their plane goes down in the Alps—and then a murder occurs, occasioned by an opera diva’s controversial will that they are all connected with in some way. A fine classic-style whodunit with well-drawn characters and a fun setting.


Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes

This is high-concept country-house mystery! An amateur theatrical performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at a lavish English country estate, on a stage recreating the design of an Elizabethan theatre, turns into a murder investigation when one of the performers is shot at the very moment their character is supposed to die in the play. The play itself is twined all throughout the intricate plot, and you know all along that somehow Hamlet holds the vital clue to the culprit, though the revelation of how doesn’t come till the very end.


Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U.S. Navy by Glenn Tucker

Every so often I pick up a historical nonfiction title not for research, but just because a random historical event or era that’s outside my usual wheelhouse sounds interesting. Mentions of the Barbary Wars had been cropping up in Regency-era fiction I read and around the fringes of conversations about history, so I decided I’d like to fill in my sketchy knowledge of them. Dawn Like Thunder is a fascinating look at a young American nation building a navy and a foreign policy from scratch, daring naval battles, Napoleonic-era diplomacy, and the perilous, colorful milieu of the Barbary states that literally made their living off of Mediterranean piracy and international protection money.


The Cowboy: His Characteristics, His Equipment, and His Part in the Development of the West by Philip Ashton Rollins

I actually read a significant part of this one last year, but returned to it after a hiatus and finished it in 2020. It’s definitely one of the top nonfiction titles I’d recommend to someone writing stories set in the West or just interested in real Western history. There’s a lot of focus on the nitty-gritty details like clothing, equipment, social customs, speech, and so forth. I’ve added a physical copy to my personal library, and I’m looking forward to re-reading it and marking especially helpful passages for future reference. I haven’t written a full review, but I did share a thought-provoking excerpt with a bit of commentary on Facebook.


Mother Mason by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Bookending the list, another title that I loved for its simple warmth and wholesomeness: a book of interconnected short stories telling of happenings in the lives of an average American family, comfortable without being rich, leading citizens of a classic Midwestern small town in the early 20th century.

In a different trend from previous years, only two of these titles are in the public domain: Penny Plain and Mother Mason (the latter newly so, hence a free version doesn’t seem to be available yet). Dawn Like Thunder was a library borrow; Deadly Duo, Crowning Heaven, and Hamlet, Revenge! were Kindle Unlimited borrows; and the rest were Kindle purchases.

Previous years’ lists: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011