My second novel in short stories is Tales of the Romanov Empire, which tells stories about the Romanovs from the beginning of the dynasty in 1613 to the end of the dynasty in 1918. In writing this book, I got to explore the story of Mikhail Romanov, the first Romanov tsar, who was elected to the throne after sixteen years of civil war. I read about the bride shows that were held to help Mikhail and his son, Alexei, find wives. I felt like not enough was known about the fact that Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, son of Tsar Alexander II, had visited America and hunted buffalos out west with Buffalo Bill. All these stories and more fill the chapters of Tales of the Romanov Empire. So do a few chapters based on my great-grandfather, Wolf Anolic, and his emigration from Romanov territory into New York City.
The Lonely Spirit is another example of my historical work. This book, which has won many awards, is a short story collection set in the Old West. It follows half-Comanche Marshal L.S. Quinn as he chases criminals across the open space of the Wild West- and also struggles to find peace in two worlds to which he does not really belong.
Many of my recent books are contemporary fiction for young readers. The YA novel Two Sisters of Fayetteville follows the two oldest sisters of a large conservative Christian family in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Both Joanna and Hannah Upshaw are being raised to follow in their parents' footsteps, with marriage and large families as their ultimate goal. But both girls, and Joanna in particular, must decide if this is the right path for them.
The Tunnel to Darkness and Light is a Middle Grade fantasy set in the near future in an America torn apart by a second civil war. Twelve-year-old Aiden Scott lost his mother in the war and his father barely pays attention to him. But when a group of neighborhood boys takes him through a tunnel into the perfect fantasy world of Summerville, Aiden is finally happy- until a mean group of mercenaries threatens that world.
The Keepers, a Young Adult fantasy, is the prequel to The Tunnel to Darkness and Light. The Keepers of Memory live in Summerville too- old men who live in caves and inherit society's memories. But when sixteen-year-old Ben Powell starts showing an aptitude for inheriting these memories too, he must decide whether to live in Summerville permanently.
A Summer Lasts Forever takes place in Bennington, Vermont and was inspired by my family's vacations in Vermont. Sixteen-year-old Ginny Edmunds is uprooted from her life in Pittsburgh for a summer as her father, a physics professor, takes a fellowship at Bennington College. Ginny is unhappy at the move until she meets Sam and Ben Morton, the teenage brothers being trained to take over their family store. Sam in particular notices Ginny. Like her, Sam is unhappy in his life- he wishes he could pursue his artwork rather than the store. As Ginny and Sam embark on a tentative rotative relationship, they risk defying their parents' expectations for how they should live their lives and seek their futures.
This Side of the Law is a legal thriller that I first wrote when I myself was in law school. The final version is a lot different than the first draft, though! Jamie Jefferson is an Assistant District Attorney in the Special Victims Unit- scuzzy work, as her friends call it. Then she's assigned a case prosecuting a Russian mobster for an assault that happened in one of his clubs. Finally, Jamie begins to dream of winning this case and having a decent career. Instead, she falls for Alexander Federov, the mobster's sixteen-year-old grandson. Their relationship puts Jamie in the crosshairs of a federal prosector out for blood. None of their lives will be the same.
I plan on writing more books. Keep watching this space for news about my upcoming work!
I grew up in New York City and began writing short pieces of fiction as early as elementary school. I became more serious about it in high school, but it still took me many years after that to do more than write a novel and never look at it again.
I began writing seriously in college, where I wrote articles for my school’s newspaper. After graduation, I wrote professionally for newspapers like “Newsday” and magazines such as “Financial History Quarterly.” In 2009, my first book was published. "The Russian Riddle," was the first nonfiction biography of the Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich of Russia, uncle of Nicholas II.
After that I turned to writing fiction. I’ve had several short stories published over the years as I’ve taken the time to write longer works.
Most of my novels have stories behind them. I wrote an early version of The Last Battle in 2002 and 2003, when the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were first starting. Back then, it was a novella and main character stayed with me. When I decided to write novels more purposefully, with the intention of getting them published, that was the first project I went back to. The wars were still going on even then, and the issue of what obstacles returning vets faced, particularly women vets, resonated with me.
I first got the idea for The Fledgling’s Inferno in 2016, when I was at Reagan National Airport, waiting for a flight. I was in the middle of revising The Last Battle and had gotten ensconced in tales of war and stories of women serving. That made me notice the woman in Army fatigues at the gate, who was on my flight and travelling with her two sisters.
Another young woman was also on the flight. She was traveling with two small children, including a toddler who was very into superheroes. The little boy was wearing a Spiderman shirt, and he had a few Spiderman toys with him. When the flight landed at our destination, everyone got up and started talking. The mother noticed the woman in fatigues and said to her young son, “see, this is a real-life superhero. Can you say, ‘thank you for your service?’”
And that was how Katie McMann, the main character of The Fledgling’s Inferno, was born. After many machinations trying to find the right way to tell this story, I started writing in 2018. The story expanded as I wrote, eventually becoming The Vanguard Warrior Trilogy. The trilogy, which is set at different military academies across the U.S., now includes the books A Silent Evil, set at Valley Forge Military Academy, and The Final Armada, which features cadets at Texas A&M.
Most of my other books have been very different. Growing up, I loved watching figure skating. I was in awe of the skaters’ blend of artistry and athletic ability. I had favorite skaters that I wished had medaled at the Olympics. I wrote the novel Like Water and Ice with that storyline in mind. Thad Moulton is one of the best skaters of his generation, but also one of its inconsistent. I needed to write his story to see if he could hold up under the pressure cooker of the Olympics.
And of course, I kept writing about the Romanovs. My mom read Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra even before I was born. When I was in college, she bought me a new biography about Rasputin, one that was based on newly released materials from the Russian archives. I read it and was fascinated. I then read a book about the whole of the Romanov dynasty. Then I read another book about the Romanovs, and another… Today I have more than two hundred books about them and I’m always buying more.
I had always wondered what kind of tsar Alexei, Nicholas II’s son, would have been if the revolution hadn’t happened. I also wondered who he would have married and what his children would have been like. I wondered who his sisters would have married, and how their lives would have unfolded. My novel Triumph of a Tsar gave me the opportunity to explore that. I had intended to only write one novel, but it too quickly turned into a series. Triumph of a Tsar goes through World War II, during which Alexei’s cousin, Prince Vsevolod Ioannovich, becomes a spy for Russia and against Nazi Germany. My novel, The Imperial Spy, tells Vsevolod’s story. While writing Triumph of a Tsar, I came across a photo of another of Alexei’s cousins, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, third son of the Grand Duke Konstantin, the Romanovs’ famous poet. Prince Konstantin had these light blue eyes that captivated me. Konstantin also never had the chance to marry or have children before the revolution hit. My novel in short stories, Through the Fire, gave me the chance to explore what Konstantin’s life could have looked life if the Romanovs had retained their throne.
A Brief History
About Me