Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: 2011 Wrap-up & 2012 Sign-up

In January 2011, I joined the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge for the first time.  I love many genres of fiction, but my ultimate favorite genre is historical fiction.  I joined this challenge with the goal of reading 20 historical fiction novels in 2011.  I reached my goal by reading a total of 24 historical fiction novels this past year.  The novels I read were as follows:

1.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
2.  Pale Rose of England by Sandra Worth
3.  I am the Chosen King by Helen Hollick
4.  Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower
5. To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick
6.  Legacy by Jeanette Baker
7.  A Race to Splendor by Ciji Ware
8.  A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer
9.  The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Conner McNees
10.  When We Danced on Water by Evan Fallenberg

11.  Mary of Carisbrooke by Margaret Campbell Barnes

12.  The King's Witch by Cecelia Holland
13.  Queen of the Summer Stars by Persia Woolley
14.  Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
15.  Sea Witch by Helen Hollick
16.  Before Versaille by Karleen Koen
17.  Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey
18.  Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer
19.  Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick
20.  The Betsy-Tacy Treasury by Maud Hart Lovelace
21.  Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
22.  A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (audio)
23.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett (audio)
24.  My Love, My Enemy by Jan Cox Speas

I read many excellent historical fiction novels this year, there is not a bad one in this bunch!  Which ones were my favorite?  Stay tuned the next week or so for my top ten books from 2011.  More than one book from this list is on my top ten for the year!

Twenty-two of these books were old-fashioned paper novels, while two were audiobooks.  The two audiobooks were books I had read in the past that were chosen for one of my book clubs this year.  I chose to explore them in a new format this time around.  Five of the twenty-four books were re-reads for me including Water for Elephants, Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, A Reliable Wife, and The Help.  It's safe to say these are some of my favorite books of all time.

I read a few children's historical fiction novels this year including Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie to my children and The Betsy-Tacy Treasury for me. The Little House series is how I started my love for historical fiction.  I'm now hoping to foster the love in my children.

It's no secret that I love to read historical fiction novels related to kings and queens, but I also enjoy historical fiction novels set in America (Little House, Betsy-Tacy, My Love, My Enemy, A Fierce Radiance, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, The Help, A Reliable Wife, and Water for Elephants).  My Love, My Enemy was the most surprising book for me this year.  The cover screamed trashy romance, but the inside was a quite good historical fiction novel set during the American war of 1812.  I would love read more novels by Jan Cox Speas and I hope they find a more suitable cover.

I very much enjoyed this challenge and I'm signing up for the Historical Fiction Challenge 2012 also hosted by Historical Tapestry.  This year I'm aiming for  level 3, Struggling the Addiction: 10 books.  I'm going to focus on the Victorian Challenge this year so I'll hopefully be reading more classics and straight non-fiction history this year. 

I'm hoping that I'll be reading more of one of my favorite sub-genres, the historical fiction thriller this year.  It is a favorite of my Kewaunee Library Book Club.  Now that the club is back on track after a 1.5 year hiatus, I can hope that we get back to some great books!

Interview with Lauren Belfer, author of A Fierce Radiance

I recently read and reviewed a fantastic historical fiction novel, A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer (see my review posted here). In that review I stated "Overall, A Fierce Radiance is a moving, intriguing, and wonderful historical fiction novel. I highly recommend it as well as Lauren Belfer’s first novel, City of Light."

I am more than a little excited to have Lauren Belfer on my blog today to answer a few of my burning questions. Thank-you Lauren for taking time out of your busy schedule!

LAG: How did you come up with the premise of your two very different historical fiction novels, City of Light and A Fierce Radiance?

LB: Although "City of Light" and "A Fierce Radiance" have historical settings, both feel very close to me personally and emotionally. As to "City of Light": I grew up in Buffalo at a time of severe economic depression, and my girlfriends and I spent a lot of time talking about leaving town. When I was young, I knew nothing about Buffalo's glorious past. One day when I was visiting the city to see my parents, years after I'd moved away, I happened to wander into an exhibit at the local historical society. The exhibit was about Buffalo in 1901, and what I discovered astonished me. When I began to write "City of Light," I tried to bring to life my discoveries about my much-maligned hometown. "A Fierce Radiance" also grew out of my own experiences. My dear aunt's brother died from an infection when he was boy, in the era before antibiotics. She never stopped mourning him. When I talked to friends about his death, I learned that almost every family has a story about a loved one who died too young because antibiotics hadn't yet been developed. I wanted to tell the story of how these essential medications transformed our lives.


LAG: I loved that you were able to make something that could have been a very dry read into an intriguing look into a world without antibiotics and what this could mean to society at large. What was your process for taking the dry science of penicillin and making it into a very fascinating story?

LB: I believe that if I can create compelling characters, readers will follow these characters anywhere -- even into the intricacies of penicillin development. From my perspective as a fiction writer, any topic can be made fascinating if it's presented through the eyes of someone who cares about it passionately. In "A Fierce Radiance," I started with my characters, and I tried to show what the coming of antibiotics meant to them, and why.

LAG: One of my favorite scenes was as follows:

“Nurse O’Brien, forced to step around Claire for the third time, confronted her by the window. ‘Doesn’t it bother you, to be taking pictures of them and never helping them? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ she asked, the lovely Irish lilt in her voice turned to anger. . .
Claire thought, Was she ashamed of herself? She had to believe that she was helping this people, if only by creating empathy in those who read their stories. Maybe inspiring others to help them. If she didn’t believe this, she couldn’t go on.”

I’ll admit that I’ve often wondered this myself about journalists. What compelled you to write this scene? Have you ever found yourself in such a situation in the past?

LB: I've never found myself in this situation, but I've wondered about it. Journalists do a vital job for our society, and they often risk their lives to report on important stories and issues. I'm filled with admiration for them, and for their courage. The journalists I know are careful never to overstep the boundaries of reporting, but this must be difficult for them situations which deeply touch their hearts.

LAG: Did you find records of people being “almost” cured by penicillin like in the opening chapters of A Fierce Radiance?

LB: When I was learning about the early days of penicillin development, I read many heartbreaking stories about severely ill individuals who were seemingly, and miraculously, brought back to health by penicillin, only to die when the medication ran out. I knew I had to recreate such a story for the opening of "A Fierce Radiance," to show the long, difficult path that led to the mass-production of antibiotics.

LAG: What was the most intriguing item that you learned in your research about penicillin?

LB: I learned so many intriguing items during my research that I've listed some of them in the P.S. section of the paperback of "A Fierce Radiance," recently published. Among the most intriguing was that penicillin was used in folk medicine for generations in Eastern Europe. Farming people would keep a loaf of stale bread in the kitchen, and when anyone in the family had a cut, they'd slice off the most moldy part of the bread and bandage it over the cut. They were harnessing the power of penicillin without even realizing it! But I keep wondering -- who first had the idea to put moldy bread on skin wounds to stop infections?

LAG: What are you currently working on? Any new historical fiction works in the future? I’ve loved both of your novels and can’t wait to read more!

LB: Thank you for your encouragement! Fiction writing is a lonely profession (I'm home alone all day, and I can't permit myself to answer the phone), so I much appreciate hearing that readers are waiting for the next book. I'm deep into my new novel -- but I'm extremely superstitious, so I won't say anything more than that.

LAG: What authors do you enjoy reading?

LB: There are so many authors I adore! But I find that the books I go back to again and again, year after year, are by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.

Thank-you again to Lauren Belfer for anwering my questions, and for writing such a great novel. For more information about Lauren Belfer and A Fierce Radiance, check out her website at: http://www.laurenbelfer.com/

A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer

A Fierce Radiance is a historical fiction thriller about the development of penicillin set at the dawn of WWII. Claire Shipley is a divorcee, mother, and a photojournalist at the very popular Life magazine. She has never quite recovered from the death of her three-year old daughter, Emily, from septicemia. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Claire is sent to photograph the use of Penicillin on a patient at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City.

There, Claire learns about the miraculous drug, Penicillin, that could have saved her daughter’s life, and that could save the lives of American soldiers during the war, putting the enemy at a distinct disadvantage. She also meets and falls in love with the handsome researcher, Dr. James Stanton. At this point in time, the government put together a Manhattan type project to get Penicillin developed from just a mold growing in a bedpan to something that could be manufactured and widely distributed. They also had to discover how to dose people with it and what exactly it could cure by testing it on a variety of problems. Claire is given the assignment of photographing this top secret research for publication after the war, while Jamie tests the new drug across the country and at the front.

Claire soon learns that the stakes to develop penicillin and get the patent on its “cousin” antibiotics are high. Her home is ransacked and a key researcher with a great new discovery dies under very mysterious circumstances. Was this researcher killed in order to profit off of her new discovery or by spies who would love to take her discovery to Germany? You will have to read the novel to find out!

I loved this novel. Belfer was perfectly able to capture New York City at the start of WWII. The people have concerns that we have long forgotten about or take for granted. It’s hard to imagine now that the American people were certain at that time that America would be invaded by its enemies. Having Claire Shipley as a photojournalist for Life was a perfect way to bring this sense of urgency and uncertainty to life as she photographs interesting stories across the nation as well as tries to keep it all together on the home front. Belfer’s research by reading all of the Life magazines and New York newspapers during that time as well as her life experience as a photojournalist in the past is perfectly blended together to create a compelling portrait.

Belfer also dipped into what it means to be a photojournalist documenting, but not becoming a part of the story. I must admit, I have often wondered about this as I see new reporters at scenes of tragedy, not helping. Belfer wrote a great scene about this as follows,

“Nurse O’Brien, forced to step around Claire for the third time, confronted her by the window. ‘Doesn’t it bother you, to be taking pictures of them and never helping them? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ she asked, the lovely Irish lilt in her voice turned to anger. . .
Claire thought, Was she ashamed of herself? She had to believe that she was helping this people, if only by creating empathy in those who read their stories. Maybe inspiring others to help them. If she didn’t believe this, she couldn’t go on.”

I loved the subject matter of this story. To think that an adult or child could die from an infected scratch is mysterious to us at this point in time. Reading about the development of Penicillin was very intriguing to me. I loved the details, but I also loved that Belfer was able to make something that could have been a very dry read into an intriguing look into a world without antibiotics. One of my favorite passages describes this:

“Doctors could do nothing, or next to nothing, to help their patients. Serum treatments. Several vaccines, including those to fight diphtheria, tetanus, and smallpox. Recently sulfa drugs, with their toxicity and limited effectiveness. Pneumonia could put an otherwise healthy adult in the hospital for a month.... President Coolidge’s son had died from a blister he developed while playing tennis in new shoes. A scratch from a rosebush could kill you. . . Tuberculosis was rampant and contagious. Last May, Claire walked Charlie to school and learned from the other parents that Miss Robertson, his art teacher, had been ‘sent to Saranac.’ Claire knew what that meant; everyone knew what that meant. Saranac was a village in the Adirondacks where TB patients received treatment in isolation from their family and friends, so they wouldn’t infect them. Some patients stayed for decades. . . Could a medicine from green mold fight all that? The idea was outlandish. Incomprehensible.”

I loved Lauren Belfer’s first novel, City of Lights, which came out about ten years ago. It was a historical fiction thriller set at Niagara Falls involving the construction of energy facilities in the 19th century. I was glad to see she was back and am happy that I had an opportunity to review her thrilling second novel.

As readers of this blog know, I am a giant fan of the Outlander novels by Diana Gabaldon and her iconic lovers Jamie and Claire. So I was intrigued that the romantic duo in A Fierce Radiance are named ... Jamie and Claire.

Overall, A Fierce Radiance is a moving, intriguing, and wonderful historical fiction novel. I highly recommend it as well as Lauren Belfer’s first novel, City of Lights.

A Fierce Radiance is my ninth book read for The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2011.

I read A Fierce Radiance as part of the TLC Book Tours. I am the last stop on the tour, but if you would like to read further reviews of this book, check back through this other great blogs on the schedule.

Lauren’s Tour Stops
Tuesday, March 29th: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom
Tuesday, March 29th: Bookworm’s Dinner (guest post)
Thursday, March 31st: Rundpinne
Wednesday, April 6th: Bibliophiliac
Monday, April 11th: That’s What She Read
Tuesday, April 12th: Books Like Breathing
Wednesday, April 13th: In the Next Room
Thursday, April 14th: Man of La Book
Monday, April 18th: Unabridged Chick
Tuesday, April 19th: Teresa’s Reading Corner
Wednesday, April 20th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Thursday, April 21st: Debbie’s Book Bag
Friday, April 22nd: Bookish Ruth
Monday, April 25th: Laura’s Reviews

Book Source: A Review Copy from Harper Collins. Thank-you!