The Historical Novel Society Conference 2026: In Quotes

Last weekend I attended my sixth in-person Historical Novel Society Conference. Typically, the annual gathering alternates between American and British locations, but this year HNS UK went to Ireland. The setting? The historic university town of Maynooth outside Dublin. The attendees? A mix of historical novelists, of differing levels of professional experience, from around the world.

As usual, I’m summarizing the conference through some of my favorite quotes from the plenary and parallel sessions. Unfortunately, this year sessions were not recorded, but I still managed to catch a lot of talks.

Finola Austin reporting from HNS 2026!

“Curiosity may not kill the cat, but it certainly encourages me to explore rabbit holes,” Kevin Connolly

Research is always a hot topic at HNS conferences and Kevin Connolly gave us a great overview of the digital resources available to those writing historical novels with an Irish setting. 

“Correspondence will give you the social worlds of your characters,” Professor Terence Dooley

Meanwhile, Maynooth History Professor and conference keynote speaker Terence Dooley suggested letters and auction catalogues as two incredible primary sources for uncovering facts that could be stranger than fiction.

However, the question of how much research is necessary or helpful continues to be hotly debated.

“If you’re writing the truth, who cares about the facts?” John Banville

Keynote speaker John Banville encouraged us to prioritize emotional verisimilitude over pedantic research, while Carol Cram’s advice was similar:

“Don’t confuse accuracy with fidelity,” Carol Cram

We heard from writers who have different “rules” for themselves about sticking (or not sticking!) to the historical record, and, for many, these “rules” evolve between projects.

“The more novels I write, the more inclined I am to take liberties,” Martina Devlin

Anne Easter Smith reminded us that, when conducting independent research unattached to an academic institution, we may face obstacles.

“We are lowly novelists and historians will look at us like this,” Anne Easter Smith

And keynote speaker Vaseem Khan raised the point that some topics and perspectives have been expunged from the mainstream historical record:

“I use my books to talk about the history I didn’t learn about in school,” Vaseem Khan

Leslie Carroll cautioned us to consider the “who” behind each primary source we consult:

“I always weigh what I’m reading against who said it,” Leslie Carroll

And the question of point of view goes beyond research and into the writing process itself:

“Most stories have been written, so it’s about finding a fresh perspective,” Louise Fein

Finding a fresh perspective can help your book become more marketable, but speakers had other tips for helping your novel stand out from the slush or on the shelf.

Give your characters plenty of problems:

“Layer on obstacles to your ideas to strengthen your pitch,” Amanda Geard

Choose a progressive historical figure as your main character:

“Artists are people in society who like to push boundaries and break rules,” Laura Morelli

Or tap into themes that have continued relatability today:

“Sisters have universality. We have expectations of sisterhood,” Kate Braithwaite

I wish there had been more sessions digging deeply into writing craft, but Lenore Hart had some helpful advice for first chapters (before her Q&A got slightly derailed by a hot debate about writing and AI!). 

“Withholding information creates confusion, not mystery,” Lenore Hart

This was my favorite tidbit from her talk, as she advised early career writers not to delay giving readers crucial information, like who is this character and when and where are we they, in a misguided attempt to create intrigue. 

There were also only a couple of sessions digging into the business of publishing, including a keynote conversation between Essie Fox and her publisher, Karen Sullivan.  

“First novels contain seeds of everything we’ve read,” Essie Fox

I liked Essie’s idea about going back to your first novel to rediscover the passions that first brought you to writing. And Karen’s thoughts on not “chasing” market trends, as a historical novelist, were well-received by the writers in attendance:

“Trend-driven publishing is flawed,” Karen Sullivan

To round out this recap, I’ll turn back to John Banville, whose rejection of the idea that writing is a form of self-expression really stuck with me. His insistence that our novels are “no longer ours” when they’re out in the world resonated, especially in an environment where you don’t know whether to lead with what you’ve done or what you’re working on next.

“I can’t remember my own books. They’ve left me. They’re in the past,” John Banville

That’s a wrap for HNS 2026, but I’m looking forward to the North America conference in Pittsburgh in 2027! If we met at the conference, please stay in touch. If we didn’t, feel free to get in touch too. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and sign up for my monthly email newsletter here.

Neo-Victorian Voices: Sometime This Century, Samantha Silva (2026)

Welcome back to my Neo-Victorian Voices series, in which I blog about novels set in the 1800s but written in the 2000s. This month, I’m writing about Samantha Silva’s Sometime This Century (2026)—and I haven’t had this much fun reading Regency-Era time travel since I reviewed Kathleen A. Flynn’s The Jane Austen Project back in 2017!

In her author’s note, Silva tells readers that this novel was once a screenplay described as a “feathered fish,” and it’s true Sometime This Century is genre-bending. It includes many tropes that historical romance readers will enjoy, but it’s also a rom com that sends up modern influencer culture, and, of course, it includes sci-fi/speculative elements.

American literary agent assistant and wannabe novelist Annabel Blake believes she was born in the wrong century, unlike her social-media-loving sister, Cassie. That’s why she jumps at the chance to spend time in a crumbling English manor. But then she attends a ball hosted by a local Regency historical society that’s just a little too realistic and meets a dashing young man named D’Evercy. 

When Cassie and her “Instagram husband” Billy arrive on the scene unexpectedly, the stage is set for a clash between cultures and centuries. Which time period does Annabel really belong in, and can she find love along the way?

Austenites will appreciate the literary references throughout, but this novel would be a fun read, whether or not you know sense from sensibility. If you’re looking for a lighthearted read to end the summer, this one comes highly recommended.

Which novel should I read and review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Want reading recommendations delivered monthly to your email inbox? Sign up to my newsletter here.

Neo-Victorian Voices: New Nineteenth-Century-Set Novels

My last few fiction reads have been set in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, so today I’m doing something a little different as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series: sharing a list of recently released and soon-to-be-released nineteenth-century-set novels I’m interested in reading. 

Hocus Pocus, Brinda Charry (expected August 2026)

India-born, US-based novelist Charry brings us a global nineteenth-century setting in her tale of an 1800s magician. I’m looking forward to seeing how she transports us to India, London, and Boston in 1816.

The Red Sacrament, Sara Hinkley (published July 2026)

A clan of vampires performing onstage in nineteenth-century Paris? I’m sold. And I hope Hinkley has brought her aesthetic sensibilities as a costume designer to her debut novel!

Land, Maggie O’Farrell (published June 2026)

Bestselling historical novelist O’Farrell turns to the period following the Irish Famine in her latest novel, which opens with a father and son mapping Ireland for the British.

Daughters of the Sun and Moon, Lisa See (published June 2026)

I very much enjoyed Lisa See’s 2005 Snow Flower and The Secret Fan, which I reviewed for this blog back in 2018, so I’m intrigued to read her tale of three Chinese women who arrive in Los Angeles in 1870.

The Foursome, Christina Baker Kline (published May 2026)

Kline draws from her own family history to tell the story of Sarah and Adelaide Yates, sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina, who married Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins from Siam.

 A Perfect Hand, Ayelet Waldman (published May 2026)

A lady’s maid tries to manipulate her employer into marriage to win her own happily ever after—this romantic romp sounds really fun!

Let me know if any of these novels are also on your TBR and what else I should add to my list. Want to keep up with my reviews of these novels and more? Sign up to my monthly email newsletter or stay in touch via Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

Neo-Victorian Voices: The Wisdom of Bones, Kitty Aldridge (2019)

Welcome back to my Neo-Victorian Voices series in which I review novels written in the twenty-first century but set in the nineteenth. Today I’m reviewing Kitty Aldridge’s The Wisdom of Bones, which centers on Percy “Unusual” George, a Victorian showman who acquires the skeleton of an eighteenth-century French dwarf. 

Writing in a journal in his colorful idiolect, Percy introduces us to the array of characters who make up his London act and details how he found this precious skeleton, which he believes will elevate his career and fortunes. After discovering the dwarf Bébé’s own journal amongst the skeleton’s papers of authenticity he seeks out a French clockmaker who translates the earlier man’s reminiscences, Percy hopes accurately. At times, Percy’s estranged wife, who has suffered the loss of multiple children, takes control of the primary journal, adding her own commentary and giving us an outside perspective on Percy and his aspirations.

Overall, this was a bizarre read. Aldridge’s use of slang in the sections set in 1879 London is memorable and vibrant, but the plotting is flimsy, it’s hard to build an emotional connection with the characters, and the chapters set in 1740s-1760s France were short and much less integral to the whole than the novel’s marketing copy led me to anticipate. The novel delivered on atmosphere, but not story, and, while the final image of the ending will stay with me, much that preceded it won’t.

One thing the book made me think of is, while “freak shows” have fallen out of favor today, books about historical acts featuring “remarkables” remain popular (Elizabeth Macneal’s 2021 Circus of Wonders is a stronger example I reviewed previously). What excited me when I picked up Aldridge’s novel was the idea of diving into the humanity of characters, like Bébé, who were treated as sub-human in their time. But a surface-level depiction of these characters and the choice to stay most firmly in Percy’s point of view reduces Bébé, and some of the other characters who make up the act, to objects readers “watch” on stage.

Let me know what novel you would like me to review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? You can comment here, message me on Instagram or Facebook, or tweet @SVictorianist. Want to get monthly emails about my writing and blog? Sign up here. 

The 2026 History Through Fiction Conference in Quotes: Part Two

It’s been around two months since the inaugural History Through Fiction Conference in Beverly, MA. I previously published a Part One blog post about the talks and workshops I attended, and, in the weeks since, I’ve been listening to the recordings of the “Prologue Day” and parallel sessions I didn’t experience live. Now, I’m back with a Part Two post with some more of my favorite quotes. 

The Salem Ghost Tour

“Our historical fiction starts to creep into the historical record,” Alina Adams

In her session with Kyra Davis Lurie, Alina Adams talked about “telling the untold tale” through historical fiction. But she also reminded us of the responsibility we bear towards the real people who inspire our characters.

“Reading a good historical fiction helps us develop a sensitivity,” Elizabeth McLean

Meanwhile, Elizabeth McLean dug into the thorny issues surrounding cultural appropriation. She argued that reading good fiction is a way to become more sensitive to the cultures and histories we’re fascinated by, while also presenting some of the arguments for and against sensitivity readers.

“Start with plot—what happens. Then add layers of interiority and complexity,” N.J. Mastro

N.J. Mastro presented us with the heroine’s journey—an alternative to the much-discussed hero’s journey. Her talk focused on the importance of characters’ interior arcs, but stressed that we can’t lose sight of the importance of plot and action in keeping our readers engaged.

“Deep faith and skilled craft don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” Edwina Kiernan

Edwina Kiernan gave us a different take on characters’ interior development by discussing her approach to writing Christian historical fiction. She talked about how for her faith-filled fiction can encapsulate Christian doctrine without coming across as preaching. 

“Readers are hungry to know what goes on inside other people’s minds,” Lara Lehman

Sticking with the theme of interiority, Lara Lehman spoke about how to render consciousness in fiction, giving us a glimpse into characters’ souls.

“One tiny mistake can pull a reader out of the story and remind them that what they’re reading isn’t real,” Grace E. Turton

And Grace. E. Turton stressed the importance of getting the details right, as we seek to render historical characters’ worlds in a way that’s truly transportive.

Thank you to Colin, Robin, and the full team behind the History Through Fiction Conference. It was a pleasure to attend, give the keynote speech, and listen to more of my fellow writers over the last few weeks. 

Want to experience the conference recordings for yourself? They are available for purchase here. Want to stay up to date with this blog and my writing? Sign up for my monthly email here. And don’t forget to say hi on Instagram and Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist!

Trending: Fin de Siècle Yellow

Butter yellow may be trending in 2026, but in vogue colors aren’t a new phenomenon. I recently read The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers, a collection of weird, genre-defying short stories first published in 1895. It got me thinking again about the importance of the color yellow in literature published near the end of the nineteenth century.

The collection’s title refers to a fictional play that drives several characters mad in the course of the short stories. In the opening story, “The Repairer of Reputations,” we are told, “It is well known how the book [The King in Yellow] spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists.”

Other nineteenth-century literature fans may recall another corrupting yellow book—in Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. “His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was it, he wondered…After a few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually revealed.” In fact, there are 22 references to “yellow” in Wilde’s most famous novel. It’s used to describe everything from gloves, wine, roses, Chinese hangings, and silk damask, to hands, faces, and a skull. 

You might also think of the maddening yellow wallpaper in Charlotte Gilman Perkins’s 1892 feminist short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper:” “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.”

So, what’s up with all this yellow?!

In the latter half of the nineteenth-century, books containing lascivious and scandalous content, often imported from France, were wrapped in yellow paper to act as a warning (or an advertisement, depending on your tastes) to readers. 

Yellow was understood to be the color of aestheticism and decadence. There was even a British journal, The Yellow Book, dedicated to works that referenced these movements. Aubrey Beardsley, illustrator of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, was its first art director. The specific yellow book Wilde includes in The Picture of Dorian Gray is Joris-Karl Huysmans’s 1884 À Rebours (Against Nature), which I reviewed back in 2013. This seminal work of decadent literature charts the life and mind of a protagonist whose desire to live aesthetically has fatal consequences. 

Yellow journalism was also a term for early tabloid journalism, as the so-called yellow press sensationalized news stories to turn a profit (sound familiar?). 

For the writers and artists I’ve mentioned in this blog post, yellow was the color of modernity, but that meant it was also the color of danger, corruption, sensation, sickness, and contagion. In the story “The Yellow Sign,” the protagonist says of the fictional play, The King in Yellow, “Oh the sin of writing such words—words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis!” The message? Pick up a “yellow” book, including the one you’re reading now, at your peril.

Thanks for reading and stay in touch—on Facebook, Instagram, or X. Want to get more updates from my blog? Sign up for my monthly email newsletter here. 

The 2026 History Through Fiction Conference in Quotes: Part One

This weekend I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker and leading a masterclass on what we can learn from Charles Dickens about writing historical fiction at the inaugural History Through Fiction Conference in Beverly, MA.

Colin Mustful kicking off the conference

The location—near Salem, home to America’s most famous witch trials, and many key Revolutionary War sites—was suitably historically inspiring. The speakers and attendees were accomplished, interesting, and passionate about their areas of expertise. And, most importantly, the food was top-notch!

In today’s blog post, I’m going to share some key takeaways, in the form of quotes, from the sessions I attended live.

“Historical fiction, when done well, creates empathy,” Marthese Fenech

Marthese Fenech shared one of the most succinct explanations of why so many of us keep coming back to historical fiction as a genre—its ability to create connections across centuries.

“Multiple timelines give us ways to see progress…and lack thereof,” Addison Armstrong

Meanwhile, Addison Armstrong also focused on how reading about the past can lead us to reflect on the present, shining a light on social issues that remain unresolved.

“I admire the writers who do the work of the historian,” Colin Mustful

Conference organizer Colin Mustful talked about the depth of many historical fiction authors’ research.

“Reading fantasy novels will help with your worldbuilding,” Jillian Forsberg

And Jillian Forsberg shared this tip for how to weave that research into your writing, taking inspiration from fantasy writers to help readers understand the worlds of our novels.

“Stakes tell the reader what happens if the protagonist fails,” Jessica Berg

Literary agent Jessica Berg kept us focused on plot (not just a cool historic setting!) by reminding us that our characters must stand at risk of losing something.

“If I’m just moving commas around, the book is done,” Alina Adams

While Alina Adams shared this tip on how to know when your book is ready to take flight.

My Dickensian Masterclass!

“As one of the older art forms still being practiced today, how lucky are we that we have centuries of writers to learn from?” Finola Austin

In my workshop, I urged delegates not to take craft lessons from historic writers, like Dickens, as well as reading widely in our genre today.

“Listen to your creative discontents and act on them,” Sarah Penner

Our opening speaker, Sarah Penner, encouraged us not to ignore our “creative discontents,” or be afraid of making career pivots based on them.

“As a full-time writer, I spend around 10% of my time writing,” Madeline Martin

And, speaking of careers, closing speaker Madeline Martin shared her own inspiring story of how hard work and determination led to writing becoming her day job, but how her day-to-day schedule might not look exactly how aspiring writers might imagine!

The conference program

Over the next days and weeks, I’ll be listening to the recordings of the parallel sessions I didn’t attend this weekend, so stay tuned for a Part Two post with more thought-provoking quotes. Thank you again to Colin, Robin, and the full team who made the conference possible, and, if we met this weekend, please stay in touch!

You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, or X, and, if you want more updates on my writing and blog, sign up to my monthly email newsletter here.

Neo-Victorian Voices: Burial Rites, Hannah Kent (2013)

After blogging about Finnish Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea last month, I’m sticking with the Nordic theme for the next book I’m writing about as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series, reviewing novels written in the twenty-first century but set in the nineteenth. Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites (2013) tells the bleak story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be executed for murder in Iceland. 

It’s 1829 and Agnes has already been sentenced to death when the book begins. Now, due to Iceland’s lack of prison, as bureaucracy around her sentence continues (what weapon should be used to cut off her head and who should wield it?), she’s sent to live with a family of farmers who are less than pleased to have a convicted killer in their mix.

Through Agnes’s interactions with her reluctant keepers and with an assistant reverend sent to prepare her for death, we gradually learn how the murders unfolded. There’s no twist here—we know what will happen to Agnes from the book’s first pages, and we stay with her until the bitter end.

The novel is atmospheric, well-researched, and relentlessly realistic. This is historical fiction dripping with bodily fluids that reminds us how hard life was in the past, rather than a sanitized period drama. We don’t get many sweeping descriptions of the Icelandic landscape. Instead, the setting comes to life through the characters’ interactions with it. How do they survive or die in a world of snow and darkness? And how do they navigate the darkness, and potentially the familiar light, inside each other?

I’d recommend Burial Rites to lovers of realistic historical fiction that packs an emotional punch. But if you’re looking for a pick-me-up, this probably isn’t your next read. 

Let me know what novel I should review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Want monthly updates from my blog? Sign up to my email newsletter here.

Neo-Victorian Voices: Beasts of the Sea, Iida Turpeinen (2025)

Happy 2026 and welcome back to my Neo-Victorian Voices series, in which I review books written in the twenty-first century but set (at least partially) in the nineteenth. This time, for the first time, I’m writing about a novel translated into English from Finnish—Iida Turpeinen’s beautiful and unusual novel, Beasts of the Sea. 

The novel begins in 1741 when a shipwrecked crew on an island between Russia and Alaska comes into contact with a species of sirenian that will come to be known as Steller’s sea cow. Next, we move forward to 1859 when the governor of a Russian colony in Alaska seeks a Steller’s sea cow skeleton, after the species was hunted to extinction within 30 years of human contact. Finally, we jump to the twentieth century, to discover how the skeleton entered the collection of the Finnish Museum of Zoology and how, over the centuries, naturalists shifted their research methods to preserve other lifeforms, instead of destroying them.

Even from this short summary, it’s easy to tell that this is not a typical novel. There are memorable characters, but our time with each of them is deliberately brief. The scope and ambition of the book is sweeping, and the fleeting nature of mammalian life is one of the novel’s central themes. Don’t expect: dialogue, romance, traditional plot beats, straightforward villains, or a predictable structure. Do expect: empathetic and moving descriptions of non-human and human perspectives, grief for the many animal species we’ve lost, and meticulous authorial research. 

I’ve been recommending the novel to anyone who’ll listen, but I remain perplexed by my own readerly reactions. How can the same book make me wish I was a vegetarian, while also leaving me salivating at its descriptions of the never-to-be-tasted delicacy of the sea cow’s flesh? I guess that’s the conundrum of being human: we have the capacity to imagine, to write, to read, and to feel, while we remain the planet’s most dangerous predator. 

Which novel should I review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series? Let me know—here, on Instagram, on Facebook, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Want monthly updates on my blog and writing? Sign up for my newsletter here.