Ruth Anne Latta

The other day, someone asked me to name some of my favourite historical novels - other than the six I have written.  I reeled off some of the books listed below, then came home and thought of several more.   All  have educated me about significant events  of the past and narrative techniques.  These are my current favourites. Isabel Allende's  novel, A Long Petal of the Sea, has compelling characters who survive the Spanish Civil War and come to Chile, where they experience the 1973 right wing coup. Amy Bloom's, White Houses , set during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, shows First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena Hickock trying to sustain a relationship during this time of economic depression and world war. Barbara Kingsolver's, The Lacuna , centres on an American author who crosses paths with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky in Mexico in the 1930s, and then pays for it during the Red Scare. Kingsolver's award-winning D...