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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 three other novels. Her latest novel, Song of the Storyteller, appeared in January 2023.

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and three other novels. Her latest novel, Song of the Storyteller, appeared in January 2023.

C. P.'s website

NBN Episodes hosted by C. P.:

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 …
Historical Fiction June 27, 2022

The Last Dress from Paris

Jade Beer

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
London, 2017. Lucille will do anything for her beloved grandmother. So when Granny Sylvie volunteers to send her to Paris to retrieve a beloved Dior creation left in the city …
Historical Fiction May 31, 2022

Miss Morton and the English House Party Murder

Catherine Lloyd

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
As we soon find out in this opener to a new series set in 1830s London, Lady Caroline Morton’s illustrious heritage has been tarnished by the financial ruin and suicide …
Historical Fiction May 3, 2022

Murder on the Sea Witch

A Redmond and Haze Mystery Book 7

Irina Shapiro

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Jason Redmond, a US Civil War surgeon, never expected to step into his father’s shoes as the heir to an English earldom. When he first shows up to claim his …
Historical Fiction April 11, 2022

Danger on the Atlantic

Erica Ruth Neubauer

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
From the years leading up to and into the French Revolution, we move forward in time to 1926. In Danger on the Atlantic (Kensington Publishing, 2022), Jane Wunderly, who left her home …
Historical Fiction March 22, 2022

The School of Mirrors

Eva Stachniak

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
France in 1755 is a country of extremes. The streets of Paris are filled with the poor and downtrodden, whereas just a few miles away lies the Palace of Versailles …
Historical Fiction March 11, 2022

Murder in the Cloister

Tania Bayard

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
There is a great temptation, when writing about the past, to sanitize its circumstances and attitudes to make the characters more palatable to present-day readers. Tania Bayard, who has written …
Historical Fiction February 25, 2022

The Last Grand Duchess

A Novel

Bryn Turnbull

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Interest in the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 has only increased since the centenary of the Romanovs’ assassination in 1918. Bryn Turnbull tackles this familiar story …
Historical Fiction February 11, 2022

An Impossible Impostor

Deanna Raybourn

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Starting a new historical mystery series is always fun, but summarizing one at book 7 creates a certain conundrum: how to convey the essence of a character and her development …