Best Christopher Macmillan Podcasts (2025)

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Dennard Dayle, "How to Dodge a Cannonball: A Novel" (Henry Holt, 2025) 1:03:30

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8d ago1:03:30

1:03:30

How to Dodge a Cannonball is a razor-sharp satire that dives into the heart of the Civil War, hilariously questioning the essence of the fight, not just for territory, but for the soul of America. How to Dodge a Cannonball (Henry Holt, 2025) is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlist…

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Jack Wang, "The Riveter" (HarperVia, 2025) 52:42

1M ago52:42

52:42

NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with author Jack Wang about his novel, The Riveter (HarperVia, 2025). In the vein of All the Light We Cannot See, a cross-cultural love story set against the dramatic backdrop of the Allied invasion of Europe during WWII. Vancouver, 1942. Josiah Chang arrives in the bustling city ready to make a new life for himself. …

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Karen Swan, "The Midnight Secret" (Macmillan, 2025) 47:58

1M ago47:58

47:58

Keeping details straight while writing a chronologically organized series is difficult enough. Focusing four full-length novels on the events of a single group experience in a single year, with back stories and future developments for a small group of heroines, each of whom has a chance to tell her own story of the central event and its consequence…

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Frank X Walker, "Load in Nine Times: Poems" (Liveright, 2024) 1:24:30

2M ago1:24:30

1:24:30

For decades Frank X Walker has reclaimed essential American lives through his pathbreaking historical poetry. In this stirring new collection, he reimagines the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—including his own ancestors—who enlisted in the Union army in exchange for emancipation. Moving chronologically from antebellum Kentucky through Reco…

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Joanna Miller, "The Eights" (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) 43:22

2M ago43:22

43:22

Joanna Miller’s The Eights (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) follows four women attending the University of Oxford in 1920. They are not the first female university students in the United Kingdom, or even the first who can hope to attain a degree, but they are the first class of women who can, if they fulfill all the requirements, attain a university deg…

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Tim Welsh, "Ley Lines" (Guernica Editions, 2025) 33:24

3M ago33:24

33:24

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with debut Toronto author Tim Welsh about his novel, Ley Lines, published by Guernica Editions, 2025. Set in the waning days of the Klondike Gold Rush, Ley Lines begins in the mythical boom town of Sawdust City, Yukon Territory. Luckless prospector Steve Ladle has accepted an unusual job offer: accomp…

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Alka Joshi, "Six Days in Bombay" (Mira, 2025) 49:49

3M ago49:49

49:49

Sona Falstaff, a hospital nurse in Bombay, has things more or less where she wants them. Yes, she faces a certain discrimination, positive and negative, because of her mixed heritage, which makes her a “half-half” in the lingo of 1930s India. She lives in a poor section of the city, and she must work to support herself and her aging mother. India i…

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Heather Akou, "Afterthought: A Family Story" (Indiana U Libraries, 2025) 55:30

4M ago55:30

55:30

Afterthought: A Family Story (Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Heather Akou focuses on the life of her grandmother, Lila Slaback, who grew up in a dysfunctional, working-class family in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the 1930s. In her short adult life, she gave birth to seven children with at least four different men and …

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Victoria Christopher Murray, "Harlem Rhapsody" (Berkley, 2025) 37:27

4M ago37:27

37:27

Most people in North America have probably at least heard the name W. E. B. Dubois. In the early twentieth century, DuBois—the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard—published and spoke extensively about his vision of equality through education. In particular, he edited The Crisis, the monthly magazine of the NAACP, while also writing …

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Sara Adrien, "Instead of Harmony: A Second Chance Regency Romance" (2023) 35:37

5M ago35:37

35:37

Raphael Klonimus battles deep regret. Haunted by losing Laila, he sees himself as a coward for letting her slip away. But fate offers him a second chance. He whisks Laila away to a secluded castle, determined to reignite their passionate love. A single, soul-stirring kiss sparks hope, yet Raphael knows their journey to happiness will be challenging…

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Elyse Durham, "Maya & Natasha" (Mariner Books, 2025) 33:36

5M ago33:36

33:36

As Nazi tanks roll toward Leningrad in August 1941, an unmarried nineteen-year-old ballerina gives birth to twin girls in the soon-to-be besieged city. Bereft of hope, the dancer—once a rising star at the Kirov—slashes her wrists, but her babies survive, rescued by the devoted friend who arrives just too late to save their mother. The friend, too, …

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Emily E K Murdoch on the Governess Bureau Series 48:07

5M ago48:07

48:07

When the nobility and gentility of England are at their wits end, they send a discrete note to Miss Vivienne Clarke’s Governess Bureau. Only accepting the very best clients, their governesses are coveted, with every governess following three rules: 1.You must have an impeccable record. 2.You must bring a special skill to the table. 3.You must never…

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Allegra Goodman, "Isola" (The Dial Press, 2025) 23:10

5M ago23:10

23:10

Today I talked to Alegra Goodman about her novel Isola (The Dial Press, 2025) After Marguerite is orphaned as a young girl, her guardian leaves her alone in her family’s enormous home, where servants see to her needs until he hires a mother and daughter to tutor her in the ways of wealthy 16th century lords and ladies. The guardian sells her home a…

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Rod Carley, "Ruff: A Novel" (Latitude 46, 2024) 37:21

6M ago37:21

37:21

RuFF (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2024) is Rod Carley’s highly-anticipated fourth novel. This historical fiction transports us to Elizabethan England, where we witness Shakespeare struggling through a midlife crisis while trying to win a national play competition to secure the King’s business. Hilarious hijinks ensue, with whip-smart dialogue and a cap…

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Fiona Davis, "The Stolen Queen" (Dutton, 2025) 28:50

6M ago28:50

28:50

Charlotte Cross has built a satisfying career as assistant curator in the Department of Egyptian Art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. It’s 1978, the museum has just opened the Temple of Dendur and is preparing to become the last US stop for the King Tutankhamun exhibit, and Charlotte at sixty has almost completed her long-planned article on Hatho…

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Sara Lodge, "The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective" (Yale UP, 2024) 45:44

7M ago45:44

45:44

In The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective (Yale UP, 2024), Sara Lodge tells stories of women who brought 19th century criminals to justice, in real life and popular culture, as unacknowledged crime-fighters and feminist icons. On stage and in fiction, women detectives were sensational figures who fascinated the public with cross-dres…

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Kim Fahner, "The Donoghue Girl" (Latitude 46, 2024) 35:29

7M ago35:29

35:29

The Donoghue Girl (Latitude 46, 2024) is heart-wrenching historical fiction from beloved Canadian author, Kim Fahner. .With her incomparable ability to create immersive worlds, Fahner tells the story of an Irish Catholic family in a Northern Ontario mining town almost a hundred years ago. Willful, headstrong Lizzie is our relatable protagonist and …

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Rob Osler, "The Case of the Missing Maid" (Kensington, 2024) 30:32

7M ago30:32

30:32

Set in 1898, Harriet Morrow is 21, supports her 16-year-old brother, and has been accepted as the first female detective at the Prescott Agency. She’s given one week to find Agnes, maid to the wealthy Pearl Bartlett, who lives in one of the Prairie Street mansions on the south side of Chicago. Harriet, who prefers wearing men’s shoes and hats and h…

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Robert G. Penner, "The Dark King Swallows the World" (Radiant Press, 2024) 43:19

7M ago43:19

43:19

Robert Penner’s best-selling novel, The Dark King Swallows the World (Radiant Press, October 2024) is a phenomenal genre-bending read. A coming-of-age, historical fiction, and fantasy novel that simultaneously engages with and dismantles the cliches of its many genres, The Dark King Swallows the World is a totally unique and totally fresh story tha…

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Suzanne Allain, "The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right" (Berkley Books, 2024) 35:39

7M ago35:39

35:39

Arabella Grant doesn’t want to deceive London high society. It’s her cousin Lady Isabella, known as Issie, who convinces Arabella to take over so that Issie can nurture her frail health and spend her time reading, which she much prefers to parties. It’s only for three months, after all. Of course, things don’t go as planned. While Arabella meets th…

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Monica Chenault-Kilgore, "The Jewel of the Blues" (Graydon House, 2024) 49:10

8M ago49:10

49:10

Life is tough for people of color in the early twentieth century—not only in the Southern states, which have put Reconstruction firmly behind them in favor of Jim Crow laws. Even so, Lucille Love, known as the Little Girl with the Big Voice, dreams of making her name on Broadway and eventually moving to Paris, leaving behind the prejudices that res…

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A. D. Bergin, "The Wicked of the Earth" (Northodox, 2024) 38:18

8M ago38:18

38:18

October, 1650, traumatised Parliamentarian spy James Archer returns north seeking his sister Meg, missing in the aftermath of Newcastle’s recent witch trials. Aloof, enigmatic Elizabeth Thompson draws him to investigate the ongoing killing of women who had worked to free the accused. But when Elizabeth herself becomes hunted, the only chance of esc…

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Tim Ecott, "Sigmundur and the Golden Ring" (Sprotin, 2024) 38:15

8M ago38:15

38:15

Tim Ecott, who is well-known as a journalist and writer, has, in his last several books, turned his attention to the history and culture of the Faroe Islands. High in the North Atlantic, half-way between Scotland and Iceland, the islands' inhabitants remain closely connected to the Viking settlers who established communities on Faroe over one thous…

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Nat Reeve, "Earlyfate" (Cipher Press, 2024) 51:02

9M ago51:02

51:02

Pip Property is no stranger to disaster. Typically, they’ve got a plan, but now Dallyangle’s favourite dandy & part-time criminal is locked in the morgue of the crime-fighting Division gone rogue, accused of far more crimes than they’ve actually committed, with (at least) two bucolic burglars out to strangle them with their own cravat. Their lover …

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Vanessa Kelly, "Murder in Highbury" (Kensington, 2024) 50:25

9M ago50:25

50:25

For a woman who published only four novels during her lifetime, with two others appearing shortly after her death and several incomplete or shorter works released into print much later, Jane Austen has had an astonishing and enduring legacy, with spinoffs, sequels, prequels, and remakes galore. Vanessa Kelly’s Murder in Highbury (Kensington Books, …

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Cynthia Reeves, "The Last Whaler" (Regal House, 2024) 28:42

9M ago28:42

28:42

After losing their young son in a tragic accident, Astrid, a Norwegian botanist specializing in Arctic flora, decides to join her husband, Tor, at a remote whaling station in the Arctic, where he spends every whaling season hunting belugas. In heartfelt journal entries, Astrid describes being stranded in a whaling hut through the dark season of 193…

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Anna Rasche, "The Stone Witch of Florence" (Park Row, 2024) 35:30

9M ago35:30

35:30

Anna Rasche's debut novel A Stone Witch of Florence (2024, Park Row) brings reader on a historical fiction adventure to Florence. As the Black Plague ravages Italy, Ginevra di Gasparo is summoned to Florence after nearly a decade of lonely exile. Ginevra has a gift--harnessing the hidden powers of gemstones, she can heal the sick. But when word spr…

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Emma Hinds, "The Knowing" (Bedford Square Publishers, 2024) 33:04

9M ago33:04

33:04

In the slums of 19th-century New York. A tattooed mystic fights for her life. Her survival hangs on the turn of a tarot card. Powerful, intoxicating and full of suspense. The Knowing (Bedford Square Publishing, 2024) by Emma Hinds is a darkly spellbinding novel about a girl fighting for her survival in the decaying criminal underworlds. Whilst work…

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Patrick Hicks, "In the Shadow of Dora: A Novel of the Holocaust and the Apollo Program" (Stephen F. Austin UP, 2020) 1:21:06

10M ago1:21:06

1:21:06

In the Shadow of Dora: A Novel of the Holocaust and the Apollo Program (Stephen F. Austin UP, 2020) spans two very different decades from the Nazi concentration camp of Dora-Mittelbau to the coast of central Florida in the late 1960s; the book tells the story of the real life intersections between the horror of the Third Reich's V-2 rocket program …

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Christina Dodd, "A Daughter of Fair Verona" (John Scognamiglio, 2024) 38:19

10M ago38:19

38:19

It takes a certain gall to update one of William Shakespeare’s most enduring and most beloved tragedies. Anyone who has survived an English literature class at a US high school or college knows that neither Romeo nor Juliet lives to old age; and those few who have not read the play, for pleasure or under duress, have probably seen one of the screen…

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F. J. Watson, "Lies of the Flesh" (Polygon, 2024) 46:13

10M ago46:13

46:13

When evil stalks the land, who can you trust? Autumn 1314. In the aftermath of the Scottish victory at the Battle of Bannockburn, the villagers of Warcop wait desperately for the return of loved ones. When brothers Wat and Rob Dickinson bring news of the death of their companion, Adam Fothergill, as they fled home, there is no one to mourn him. But…

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Peter Rose, "The Good War of Consul Reeves" (Blacksmith Books, 2024) 50:15

10M ago50:15

50:15

Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, in June 1941, his wife and daughter left behind in China. Seven months later, Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, invaded Hong Kong, and made Reeves the last remaining British diplomat for hundreds of miles, …

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Madeline Martin, "The Booklover's Library" (Hanover Square Press, 2024) 35:28

10M ago35:28

35:28

The Booklover's Library (Hanover Square Press, 2024) has one of the most dramatic openings I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of novels. It’s 1931 in Nottingham, England, and seventeen-year-old Emma, ensconced in her father’s bookshop, is engrossed in her favorite novel, Jane Austen’s Emma, when she realizes the building around her has caught fire…

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Jake Lamar, "Viper's Dream" (Crooked Lane Books, 2023) 50:18

11M ago50:18

50:18

Jake Lamar's novel Viper's Dream (Crooked Lane Books, 2023) is a gritty, daring look at the vibrant jazz scene of mid-century Harlem, and one man’s dreams of making it big and finding love in a world that wants to keep him down. Harlem, 1936. Clyde “The Viper” Morton boards a train from Alabama to Harlem to chase his dreams of being a jazz musician…

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Heather Redmond, "Death and the Visitors" (Kensington, 2024) 46:04

11M ago46:04

46:04

Today I talked to Heather Redmond about her new novel Death and the Visitors (Kensington, 2024). In this second Regency-era mystery featuring Mary Godwin Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, the sixteen-year-old heroine (still Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin at this point in her life) and her stepsister and close lifetime companion, Jane Clairmont, are …

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Orientalism in Representations of Muslims: A Discussion with Laury Silvers 1:14:30

12M ago1:14:30

1:14:30

In this episode of Radio ReOrient we return to the literary theme of this season, to explore the work of Laury Silvers. Laury is the author of many successful book series set in the past and present of the Islamicate, including her Sufi Mysteries Quartet set in 10th Century Baghdad. In this interview she tells Saeed Khan and Salman Sayyid about her…

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Eve J. Chung, "Daughters of Shandong" (Berkley Books, 2024) 38:31

1y ago38:31

38:31

Daughters of Shandong (Berkley Books, 2024), the author’s first and based on the life of her grandmother, follows the fortunes of a mother and three daughters abandoned by their wealthy family in soon-to-be Communist China. It is 1948, and Chairman Mao’s forces have moved into Shandong Province, driving the Nationalist Army into retreat. Although t…

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Nat Reeve, "Nettleblack" (Cipher Press, 2022) 49:33

1y ago49:33

49:33

1893. Henry Nettleblack has to act fast or she’ll be married off by her elder sister. But leaving the safety of her wealthy life isn’t as simple as she thought. Ambushed, robbed, and then saved by a mysterious organisation – part detective agency, part neighbourhood watch – a desperate Henry disguises herself and enlists. Sent out to investigate a …

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Joanna Lowell, "A Shore Thing" (Berkley Books, 2024) 45:57

1y ago45:57

45:57

Joanna Lowell is known for her witty historical romances set in late Victorian England, a period both undergoing and resisting dramatic social change. Her previous novels in this series pair a young artist from the East End with her tortured muse, a duke; a runaway duchess with an admirably calm young man convinced she is a plant lover like himself…

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Katherine Mezzacappa, "The Maiden of Florence" (Fairlight Books, 2024) 26:15

1y ago26:15

26:15

Florence, 1584. Rumours are spreading about the virility of a prince marrying into the powerful Medici family. Orphan Giulia is chosen to put an end to the gossip. In return she will gain her freedom, and start a new life with a dowry and her own husband. Cloistered since childhood and an innocent in a world ruled by men, Giulia reluctantly agrees,…

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Sasha Vasilyuk, "Your Presence Is Mandatory" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 26:01

1y ago26:01

26:01

In 2007 Ukraine, following the death of her husband, Yefim Shulman, Nina finds a letter he wrote to the KGB confessing the secret he’d kept for over 50 years. If it came out that his unit was wiped out and he was taken as a prisoner of Germany during WWII, he would have been considered a traitor to the USSR. After surviving the Red Army, Nazi priso…

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A. Engels, "A Fool for an Heir" (2024) 40:22

1y ago40:22

40:22

Few destinies are more challenging than life in the orbit of a man obsessed with expanding his power at all costs. Such is the fate endured by Ivan Ivanovich (Ivan the Young), eldest son of Russia’s Ivan III (r. 1462–1505) and the narrator of A. Engels’s novel, A Fool for an Heir. While his father focuses on extending his reach into neighboring pri…

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"Akmaral" (Regal House, 2024): A Discussion with Judith Lindbergh 49:58

1y ago49:58

49:58

Inspired by the legends of Amazon women warriors told by ancient Greek historian Herodotus and evidenced by recent archaeological discoveries in Central Asia, Akmaral (Regal House Publishing, 2024) is the latest historical fiction novel by author Judith Lindbergh. Through the story of its eponymous main character, a nomadic warrior woman living in …

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Ruth Reichl, "The Paris Novel" (Random House, 2024) 42:30

1y ago42:30

42:30

Stella St. Vincent, a thirty-something copy editor in 1980s New York, has survived a relationship with her mother, Celia, so complicated that even the words “my daughter” give Stella pause. Celia lived life to the fullest, reinventing herself and discarding anything that no longer pleased her, including Stella’s father, whom Celia refused even to n…

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Zhang Ling, "Aftershock" (Amazon Crossing, 2024) 31:12

1+ y ago31:12

31:12

In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a mother who makes an agonising decision that irrevocably changes her life and the lives of her children. In that devastating split second, her seven-year-old daughter, Xiaodeng, is separated from her br…

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Robin Oliveira, "A Wild and Heavenly Place" (Putnam, 2024) 37:59

1+ y ago37:59

37:59

When Samuel Fiddes and Hailey MacIntyre meet by chance in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1878, their worlds appear to be far distant from each other. Samuel lives with his little sister, Alison, in a tenement—the two of them scrabbling to keep themselves fed and clothed. Hailey enjoys a comfortable middle-class life, although the expectations placed on her …

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Harry Turtledove, "Wages of Sin" (Caezik SF & Fantasy, 2024) 21:02

1+ y ago21:02

21:02

What if HIV started spreading in the early 1500s rather than the late 1900s? Without modern medicine, anybody who catches HIV is going to die. In Wages of Sin (Caezik SF & Fantasy, 2024), by Dr. Harry Turtledove, a patriarchal society reacts to this devastating disease in the only way it knows how: it sequesters women as much as possible, limiting …

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Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, "The Phoenix Crown" (William Morrow, 2024) 47:55

1+ y ago47:55

47:55

Kate Quinn and Janie Chang are independently acclaimed authors of historical fiction, both of whom have previously appeared on this podcast channel. Here they combine their skills to tell a story about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake from multiple points of view. One line follows the story of Alice Eastwood, a botanist whom we meet in London five…

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Teresa H. Janssen, "The Ways of Water" (She Writes Press, 2023) 29:47

1+ y ago29:47

29:47

Josie Belle Gore is only six years old when we meet her in 1908, yet her father has tied a rope around her waist and is lowering her into a dark well to retrieve a dead animal that is poisoning the water. The third daughter of a growing family, Josie has moved with her family from western Texas to Arizona, then eastward again, settling in the New M…

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Jon Clinch, "The General and Julia" (Atria Books, 2023) 40:00

1+ y ago40:00

40:00

Barely able to walk and rendered mute by the cancer metastasizing in his throat, Ulysses S. Grant is scratching out words, hour after hour, day after day. Desperate to complete his memoirs before his death so his family might have some financial security and he some redemption, Grant journeys back in time. He had once been the savior of the Union, …