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About C. P. Lesley

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest novel, The Merchant's Tale, co-written with P.K. Adams, appeared in November 2023.

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, The Merchant's Tale, co-written with P.K. Adams, appeared in November 2023.

C. P.'s website

NBN Episodes hosted by C. P.:

Historical Fiction November 21, 2023

The Winthrop Agreement

A Novel

Alice Simpson

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Rivkah Milman is just one of the thousands of young women who fled their homes in Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century, looking for better prospects in New York—where …
Historical Fiction October 19, 2023

The Boy in the Rain

Stephanie Cowell

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
Robert Stillman, an eighteen-year-old Londoner, has few expectations when he travels to Nottingham to study with the Reverend George Langstaff. Life has not treated Robbie well recently: his mother’s death …
Historical Fiction September 18, 2023

Harlem After Midnight

Louise Hare

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
After a tumultuous journey across the Atlantic (detailed in last year’s Miss Aldridge Regrets), Lena Aldridge has reached New York City only to discover that the Broadway show that lured …
Historical Fiction September 1, 2023

The Last Saxon King

A Jump in Time Novel (Book One)

Andrew Varga

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
Daniel Renfrew is a typical American sixteen-year-old. His main gripe when the story opens is that his dad insists on home schooling even though Daniel would much prefer attending the …
Historical Fiction August 18, 2023

The Witch and the Tsar

Olesya Salnikova Gilmore

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
Any novel set in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1533–1584) is an instant draw for me; that is, after all, the setting for most of my own …
Historical Fiction July 17, 2023

Endpapers

Jennifer Savran Kelly

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
Today I talked to Jennifer Savran Kelly her new book Endpapers (Algonquin Books, 2023). Dawn Levit has reached a crossroads in life. What seemed like a stable relationship with a gay roommate is …
Historical Fiction June 30, 2023

The Seeing Garden

Ginny Kubitz Moyer

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
Nineteen-year-old Catherine Ogden appears to have everything: youth, wealth, birth, breeding, and beauty. No one in New York high society is surprised when she attracts the attention of William Brandt …
Historical Fiction June 20, 2023

A Fatal Illusion

Anna Lee Huber

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
A Fatal Illusion (Berkley Books, 2023)—the eleventh installment in Anna Lee Huber’s Lady Darby Mysteries featuring Kiera and Sebastian Gage—opens in Yorkshire in 1832. The two of them have come …
Historical Fiction June 5, 2023

Killingly

Katharine Beutner

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Listen:
In 1897, a Mount Holyoke College junior named Bertha Mellish disappears from campus overnight, leaving no word for her family. It’s a time when female college students are still considered …
Historical Fiction May 9, 2023

Out of Ireland

Marian O'Shea Wernicke

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Today I talked to Marian O’Shea Wernicke about her new novel Out of Ireland (She Writes Press, 2023). Most people have heard of the Irish famine in 1848 and of the resistance movement …
Historical Fiction April 17, 2023

Who Cries for the Lost

C. S. Harris

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Fans of Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, know that the individual tales that form his saga combine complex, fast-paced, often political mysteries with a series of revelations about his family’s history …
Literature April 4, 2023

Charred

A Whipped and Sipped Mystery

G. P. Gottlieb

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
In Charred, the third of G. P. Gottlieb’s Whipped and Sipped Mysteries, her heroine, Alene Baron, has a lot on her mind. Chicago is in lockdown, a response to the …
Historical Fiction March 21, 2023

The White Lady

Jacqueline Winspear

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
It’s just after World War II, and Elinor White (born Elinor de Witt, which also means “white”), a single woman in her mid-forties, lives as a recluse in a village …
Historical Fiction March 8, 2023

Marvelous

Molly Greeley

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Once in a while, a novel comes along that is both different and special. Marvelous (William Morrow, 2023) is such a book. Retellings of fairy tales are not unusual, and …
Historical Fiction February 19, 2023

The Woman with the Cure

Lynn Cullen

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
The essential contribution of The Woman with the Cure (Berkley Books, 2023) can be summarized in one sentence: like most of its future readers (I assume), I had never before heard …
Historical Fiction January 17, 2023

Pandora

A Novel

Susan Stokes-Chapman

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
It is the very end of the eighteenth century, and Pandora Blake—known as Dora—lives at the edge of London society. Despite the opposition of her obnoxious uncle Hezekiah and his …
Historical Fiction December 8, 2022

The American Adventuress

A Novel

C. W. Gortner

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
From Lucrezia Borgia to Marlene Dietrich, Empress Marie Fyodorovna of Russia, and most recently the actress Sarah Bernhardt, C. W. Gortner has made a career out of finding strong, fascinating, real-life …
Historical Fiction November 21, 2022

The Winter Garden

Nicola Cornick

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
In her novels, Nicola Cornick blends a modern perspective with a historical mystery and a paranormal connection between the two. The Winter Garden (Graydon House Books, 2022) revolves around the …
Historical Fiction October 25, 2022

A Trace of Poison

Colleen Cambridge

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Agatha Christie hardly needs an introduction. The Queen of Mystery has reigned since the 1920s, and the recent release of films based on her books shows that her popularity is …
Historical Fiction September 29, 2022

Miss Del Río

A Novel of Dolores del Río, the First Major Latina Star in Hollywood

Bárbara Mujica

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Miss del Río (Graydon House Books, 2022) explores the biography of a real-life actress, Dolores del Río, who became a silent movie star in Hollywood, navigated the transition to talkies, and …
Historical Fiction September 6, 2022

Back to the Garden

A Novel

Laurie R. King

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Today I talked to Laurie R. King about her new novel Back to the Garden: A Novel (Bantam, 2022). Inspector Raquel Liang of the San Francisco Police Department has reached a …
Historical Fiction August 9, 2022

Winter's Reckoning

A Novel

Adele Holmes

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Madeline (Maddie) Fairbanks has created a satisfying life for herself in Jamesville since the death of her husband, Samuel, one of the town’s leading citizens. An herbalist from a long …
Historical Fiction July 21, 2022

The Falcon's Eyes

A Novel

Francesca Stanfill

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Twelfth-century Europe was not a good time or place to be born female. Even queens had few rights, garnered little respect, and were tolerated largely for their ability to produce …
Historical Fiction July 5, 2022

Death of an Heiress

Anne Louise Bannon

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Los Angeles in the 1870s is not the sprawling city we know today. A rapidly growing pueblo of perhaps 7,000 residents, it features vineyards and ranchos, worked by an army …