Historical Fiction Spotlight: The Removes

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The Removes is a brilliantly-written and well-researched novel. The settling and (so-called taming) of the American frontier in the 1800s is often romanticized in fiction. Very little in this book is romanticized. It brings to life, in vivid description and with brutal realism, a shameful and terrifying period in our nation’s history.

Three intertwined stories are told – those of 15-year-old homesteader Anne, Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer, and Custer’s wife Libbie. When Anne survives a Sioux attack on her family, she’s taken captive to live among the tribe where she endures near-starvation, rape, and hard labor over many years. Young, pampered Libbie also is thrown into a harrowing life when she marries Custer and travels with his regiment as they battle the remaining Indian tribes in the territories.

Tatjana Soli creates characters with depth. While some are fictionalized interpretations of famous people (the Custers), others are pseudohistorical compilations of everyday people from the time (Native Americans, homesteaders, cavalrymen, small town folk, big city socialites). The worst among them are violent and vindictive, the best are often self-indulgent and turn a blind eye to the cruelty around them. There are very few innocents in this story. They all are tragically human.

Soli’s writing evokes strong, often visceral, emotion. The story contains many descriptions of cruel, senseless violence against people and animals. Beyond the anticipated death-toll of war, countless bodies are mutilated, women and children enslaved and abused. Beyond hunting, innumerable animals are slaughtered – dogs, buffalo, horses – for military strategy, for amusement, for vengeance. Several scenes brought tears to my eyes and created a knot in my stomach. This book is not for the faint of heart.

At the same time, Soli captures the beauty of nature and the fortitude of humanity in a way that often consoled me. In relating a rare moment of peace for the young captive, Anne, the author wrote, “The cool nights and nearby river lulled her to a peaceful state. For the moment, she was content. Human happiness was like a flower insistent on burrowing its way out despite the most inhospitable conditions.”

There were a few historical information dumps that could have been handled more lyrically, and several inconsequential scenes that could have been cut to improve the overall story’s pace. But that is a minor nitpick compared to the broad impact the story had on my heart, mind, and soul.

The Removes* is not what I would call an “enjoyable” book, though I’m glad I read it, and I recommend it to anyone able to bear the pain of it. This is historical fiction at its best.

*Purchases at Bookshop.org help support indie bookstores and authors, including me.

Healing and Empowerment through the Arts

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My life has always been fueled by books and writing. It has also been fueled by dance. Much of my youth was focused on ballet and modern dance. Mikhail Baryshnikov, who defected from the Soviet Union in 1974, was one of my earliest inspirations. His 1985 movie “White Nights” with the late-great Gregory Hines remains one of my all-time favorites.

In a recent interview with Pointe Magazine Editor Amy Brandt, Baryshnikov said, “The most important thing for a dancer, besides mastering their technique, is to be persistent and brave when it comes to finding their own voice and style.”

That advice applies to writers, too.

It applies to all art forms and vocations, really.

“Art heals wounds, even the deepest ones. Art can be our best friend in our most lonely hours and can give us hope in the worst moments,” Baryshnikov told Pointe Magazine.

He has spoken out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and helped found a humanitarian organization to support Ukrainian refugees, True Russia. Its website is a database of social, cultural and scientific initiatives of Russian-speaking communities around the world who are anti-war and pro-democracy. Its founders and supporters seek to show the world that dictator Vladimir Putin “does not speak and act for all Russians.”

“I have been astonished by the heroic response of artists in Ukraine, many of whom exchanged ballet shoes for army boots…,” Baryshnikov said. “I had a brief correspondence with one of those dancers and told him he was my hero. He protested, saying he wasn’t a hero and that it’s the people of Ukraine who are the heroes. His answer, so immediate and so full of conviction, touched me deeply.”

Brandt asked Baryshnikov what advice he would share with his younger self. His answer is sage advice for us all.

“Don’t waste your time. Keep learning. Study languages, literature, math, geography. Step outside of dance. Go to the opera. Learn to play an instrument. Try photography. Visit museums. Broaden your horizons and stretch your imagination. Become a student of the world.”

Read the full Pointe Magazine interview here.

Memoir Spotlight: Enough Already

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All writing is hard. Take it from someone who has spent her entire adult life earning a living as a writer. Still, some forms are more difficult than others. In memoir, it’s not enough to write well. It’s not enough to put your guts on display, to be brutally honest about your silent struggles, your many missteps, your stupid mistakes. It’s not enough to share some morsel of wisdom you may have gained in your trials. Memoirists must do every one of these things, and then potentially face the ire of family or friends who may see it all differently. They must face the critique of complete strangers who will read, analyze, and judge. People who write and publish memoirs are badass.

Valerie Bertinelli is badass. Of course, I believed that before I read her memoir, Enough Already: Learning to Love Who I Am Today*. Reading the book confirmed it for different reasons than I expected.

She is less than a decade ahead of me in age. As a teenager, I loved Bertinelli in the TV show “One Day at a Time,” and I envied her for marrying Eddie Van Halen. She seemed to have the perfect life.

In retrospect, in my 50s, I understand that no person or life is perfect. Each of us is, at some point, in need of love, happiness, purpose, peace. Each has that inner voice of doubt – if only I was prettier, smarter, richer, thinner, better…. Even celebrities who appear to have it all.

Bertinelli’s memoir isn’t a literary masterpiece or a tell-all shocker. It does have fun stories about her life with Van Halen (she called him Ed) and her career evolution. She is open about motherhood, her struggles with self-worth, and her constant pursuit of losing weight (even when she was 126 pounds). She also goes into detail about how food can feed the soul, and how cooking with and for the people you love enriches life. The book was written the year Bertinelli turned 60, the year of the pandemic, the year Eddie Van Halen died of cancer. She touches on his substance abuse, their separation and subsequent remarriages, and their enduring love for one another despite it all.

The book is about a lifelong journey toward finding and appreciating the joy in life. It gets a little woo woo at times (Bertinelli’s words). It gets a little repetitive, as well. Ultimately, it’s a sincere, humble, heartrending read.

Here is a series of excerpts that, for me, encapsulate what Bertinelli conveys through the book:

“The garden took several years to plant and longer before it began producing fruit and vegetables in abundance. That was a good thing. I needed to learn patience and get into the routine of giving the garden daily attention and care, something I needed to work on with myself, too. And that was and still is the most valuable takeaway.”

“Happiness and joy are the fruits of a healthy life, but it takes work every day. My garden reminds me of this. You have to get your hands dirty.”


Valerie Bertinelli, Enough Already

“Joy is not going to come to me. I have to intentionally pursue it every day.”


Valerie Bertinelli, Enough Already

“…gratitude is the staircase you climb to get to joy.”


Valerie Bertinelli, Enough Already

Learn more about Bertinelli’s memoir here. *

*When you make a purchase at Bookshop.org, you support independent bookstores and authors like me.

Historical Fiction Recommendation – Figurines

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Figurines by Jamie Boud

For the past few years, I’ve served as a judge for the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Contest. Out of the 25 to 50 books I’m tasked to read, one or two are to be selected to progress to round-two judging. Most are average, a few have buried potential, and more than a handful are genuinely awful. Sometimes it’s the idea that falls short. Most often, it’s the execution. Common problems are stereotypical characters, inauthentic dialogue, passive language, and shoddy editing.

But in a good year, there is the one – the book that shines. This year, that book was Figurines by Jamie Boud.* I don’t know how it will fare with the next judge, but it impressed the heck out of me.

Figurines contains all the visual hallmarks of a high-quality novel, including striking artwork, professional design, and impeccable copyediting. Boud’s day job is as an artist and designer, and his talent shows.

The true measure, of course, is the writing. Boud shines there, as well. His use of sensory description evokes emotion and draws the reader deep into the complex story. Events from the past are slowly and expertly revealed  to the reader, in first-person by two narrators who become more engaging, authentic, and tragic with each chapter.

From the book jacket: 

In 2011 New York, Rachel is one step away from becoming invisible. Half a century earlier, confined in the clean, white walls of a mental hospital, Anna wishes she could be.

Rachel and Anna’s lives are woven together—one desperate to be seen, to find out who she is in the bright sunlight of New York and the dark shadows of her family history, and one frantically trying to sort reality from the fantasy in her head, to be known as a person before she’s lost to dull hospital labyrinths and the sharp tang of medicine on her tongue. Figurines is a deep exploration of self, of family, of mental illness, and the thin line between invisibility and nakedness. Between desperation and madness.

Historical and literary fiction readers will appreciate this exploration into the many facets of love, loss, family, isolation, and mental illness. Click here to learn more about Figurines.*

*When you make a purchase at Bookshop.org, you support independent bookstores and authors like me.

Bookish Giveaway

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Who doesn’t love a book about a book? This month’s bookish giveaway is a hardback copy of The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare by Kimberly Brock.

I received two gift copies of this gorgeous historical novel, which means I have one to share with a lucky newsletter subscriber!

One person will be drawn at random from my author email subscriber list to win and will be notified on May 31, 2022. U.S. address only.

If you’re not currently a subscriber, click here to sign up and enter to win.

From the publisher:

The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the 15 generations of. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped.

In the waning days of World War II, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.

You can click here to learn more or support the author by purchasing a copy.*

Words from Nature

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The connection between today’s children and the nature world gets further eroded each year. The Lost Words is a big, beautiful book of poems and artwork created to celebrate the wonder and reinforce the importance of everyday nature in all our lives.

Here’s a summary from the publisher: “In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary — widely used in schools around the world — was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these “lost words” included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voicemail.”

In response, nature writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris created a “spell book” meant to be read aloud. They sought “to summon these words again into the voices, stories, and dreams of children and adults alike.”

The brief video below shows off the gorgeous artwork of The Lost Words (though it doesn’t truly do it justice!). This a book with heft that is sure to become a family heirloom. I highly recommend buying this special book for all the children in your life.*

* If you decide to purchase from Bookshop.org, a portion of the sale will support indie bookstores and authors, including me.