Happy Friday, all!

One of the best things historical fiction does is to bring back the stories of people who should be remembered, but aren’t.  This week, I read Allison Pataki’s latest, Finding Margaret Fuller, and marveled at the way this woman– whose story reads like fiction even though it all happened!– has been forgotten.

Confession: when Allison told me she was writing a book about Margaret Fuller, my brain felt like the ignition setting on a gas stove, clicking and clicking but not catching.  I knew I had heard the name, but couldn’t remember a thing about her, other than that maybe she had something to do with Massachusetts and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I now feel like I owe Margaret Fuller a huge apology.  Not only was she Emerson’s muse– and Hawthorne’s and Thoreau’s– she was an accomplished writer in her own right, was the first woman reporter hired by Horace Greeley, antagonized Edgar Allen Poe, and got tangled up in the Italian Risorgimento (there may be a hot Italian count involved).  She was also besties with everyone from Georges Sand to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the inspiration for Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

How do we not know about her??  I am so grateful to Allison for introducing me (and everyone!) to the life of this remarkable woman and incredibly ashamed that before this I just thought she was “something to do with Ralph Waldo Emerson”.  Ralph Waldo Emerson should be proud to be something to do with Margaret Fuller!

When I haven’t been traveling with Margaret Fuller, I’ve been back in 1940s New York with Elizabeth Daly’s Henry Gamadge mysteries, which I’ve been re-reading in order as a form of comfort reading.

But my next read is going to be the proofs for the Manhattan Well Murder book, which arrived today!

What have you been reading this week?