book review, historical fiction

Review: The Caricaturist by Norman Lock

Oliver Fischer, a self-styled bohemian, boardwalk caricaturist, and student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, enrages his banker father and earns the contempt of Philadelphia’s foremost realist painter Thomas Eakins when he attempts to stage Manet’s scandalous painting The Luncheon on the Grass. Soon after, he is ensnarled, along with Mark Twain and Andrew… Continue reading Review: The Caricaturist by Norman Lock

book review, history

Review: Freeman’s Challenge by Robin Bernstein

Freeman's Challenge is an informative and educational piece of historical work that explains the one of the first for-profit prisons and a brutal murder of a family that shook the town of Auburn in New York. I greatly appreciated Robin Bernstein's opening chapter regarding the contextual history of the land that would become Auburn. Bernstein… Continue reading Review: Freeman’s Challenge by Robin Bernstein

book review, historical fiction

Review: What They Said About Luisa by Erika Rummel

What They Said ABout Luisa by Erika Rummel imagines a backstory for a real 16th century woman named Luisa Abrego, an enslaved woman of "Moorish" heritage in Seville who had been set free upon her master's death. Upon manumission, he also allegedly gave her a sum on which to live. Luisa then journeyed to Zacatecas,… Continue reading Review: What They Said About Luisa by Erika Rummel