Publisher Discount for The Orchid Hour

 

For the next week, my historical novel The Orchid Hour will be priced at 99 cents for the ebook in the United States and the United Kingdom.

To order it, click here.

I'm thrilled with the response to my novel!

Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and said: "Bilyeau paints a vivid portrait of 1923 New York City—particularly its insular Italian community, alluring speakeasies, and Prohibition-fueled organized crime—in this impeccably researched historical mystery...brilliantly evokes the intoxicating grit and glamour of Jazz Age Manhattan and layers a smooth blend of suspense and romance on top. Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible."

On Amazon, The Orchid Hour has a 4.4 rating among readers.

The endorsements from other authors include:

"With a heroine you can’t help rooting for, a fascinating cast of characters, and a tense, high-
stakes mystery at its heart, this is a book you can’t stop reading." -- Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow


“Nancy Bilyeau draws you effortlessly into a layered story, rich in historical detail, with a strong, intelligent, determined heroine at its center. I loved Zia from page one.” – Barbara Claypole White, author of The Perfect Son


“The structure of the story races you through it at breakneck speed. It is a hard book to put down, and all the time, there are so many threads binding the story together that the story is like an orchid and its roots.” – Griff Hosker, author of Hastings, Flodden, and Lord Edward’s Archer series


“Nancy Bilyeau has created a beautifully layered and utterly seductive tale of a young woman’s emotional awakening and search for justice, set against the dangerous criminal world of the 1920s New York City underground. The past comes thrillingly alive as Bilyeau lifts the veil on immigrant communities, speakeasies, gangsters, corruption at the highest levels of city government, and, at its living, tender heart, a strong-willed and magnetic heroine.”
—Emilya Naymark, author of Behind the Lie, finalist for the 2023 Sue Grafton Award

"The Orchid Hour... reeks with the smell of lasagna in Little Italy, the smell of cheap gin in a 1920s speakeasy, and most importantly and most delicately with the scent of orchids at midnight... her best by far, and she'd already set a high bar." - Timothy Miller, author of The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

"Nancy Bilyeau has become my go-to author for brilliantly written historical suspense... Read it and be seduced." - Kris Waldherr, author of Unnatural Creatures and The Lost History of Dreams

It has a 4.4 reader rating right now on Amazon. 

Guest Post: Crystal King's Renaissance Recipe & Book Giveaway

Crystal King, a talented historical novelist who also published with my former imprint, Touchstone, wrote an exclusive article for my newsletter subscribers that shares a recipe! Crystal’s historical fiction is set in Italy. 'The Chef’s Secret' unfolds during the Renaissance. As my new novel 'The Orchid Hour' revolves around an Italian-American heroine, I was thrilled at the prospect of her writing up a recipe for an Italian ring-shaped cake 😊My newsletter went out to my subscribers on 9/11. And today I'm sharing this as a guest post on my blog.

Hi all!  

Like Nancy, I also write historical fiction. I have focused on historical chefs and Italian culinary figures who left behind cookbooks or manuals of stewardship that laid the foundation of the Italian cuisine we know and love today. My most recent novel, The Chef’s Secret, is about the first celebrity chef, Bartolomeo Scappi, known throughout Italy and possibly all of Europe for his grand banquets. His cookbook, L’Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, contains over 1,000 recipes, including some of the first pasta dishes, hundreds of meat and fish recipes, and dozens upon dozens of delicious recipes for pies and pastries. It was published in 1577 and was a bestseller for nearly two centuries. 
 
I love writing about Italian culinary figures (my first novel, Feast of Sorrow, was about Apicius, an ancient Roman gourmand), and with that comes the opportunity to dive deep into these historical cookbooks to recreate the meals of the past. 
 
Today I’m sharing a recipe from Book V.148 of L’Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi. You may have heard that bagels originated with Polish Jews in the 17th century, but in Italy, ciambelle had been around for at least a century or two before. A ciambella is essentially a form of what we know as a bagel, dough that is boiled and then baked, and, by the 1600s, ciambelle vendors were common on the streets of many Italian cities. Ciambelle are still popular in Italy today, and many Italian American households will recognize a version of this recipe or the very similar but much harder, taralli, as a staple at their table. You’ll also see the term ciambelle to refer to sweet ring-shaped cookies or cakes, which emerged over the centuries. 
 
It was common to see ciambelle venditore on foot, such as this seller, who carried the crunchy but soft rounds of bread on sticks in his basket. 
 

This recipe tries to stay true to Scappi’s but, to give it a little oomph, I did include yeast. If you’re not a fan or can’t find any, you can leave out the rosewater and use plain water, but you’ll lose the distinct Renaissance flavor.

Ciambelle

 
Note: When buying rose water, make sure that you are not buying rose essence, which might be labeled as rose water but comes in a brown bottle. Buy clear tall bottles of rose water such as Cortas or Al Wadi. 
 
Makes 8 large (6 inch) ciambelle
 
4 c. flour
1 packet of active dry yeast 
¼ cup and 1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp rosewater
1 ¼ cup goat milk  (or substitute whole milk)
2 beaten eggs
1 tbsp anise or fennel seeds
1/2 tsp salt

1. Warm goat milk to room temperature (use a microwave or stovetop if you like but do not let it get too hot), add the sugar and yeast, and let it sit till bubbly.
2. Mix rosewater and eggs together then add the bubbly yeast mixture and combine. 
3. Mix fennel seeds into the flour, then form a well on the countertop.
4. Add egg and yeast mixture to the center of the flour well, then slowly mix the edges of the flour into the liquid, combining with your fingers until a dough is formed. 
5. Knead well, then set aside the dough, covered with a clean towel, to rise for 20 minutes.
6. Set a large pot of water on the stove to boil. 
7. Divide the dough into 8 even parts. You don’t want the dough to rise again, so work with the dough immediately, do not set aside.
8. Roll the 8 dough sections into ropes, twist them, and form into large rings, approximately 5-6 inches wide, pinching the ends together. If you like, you can divide each section in half, form two ropes and then twist the ropes together before forming a ring, but you’ll need to roll the ropes much thinner. Lay the rings on a clean towel or a heavily floured surface to prevent them from sticking while you make additional rings.
9. Put the rings one or two at a time into the pot of boiling water. Make sure they don’t stick to the bottom. They will rise to the top right away. Flip them over and let them boil for one minute. Remove them from the water with a slotted spoon and place on an oiled baking sheet.
10. Sprinkle with additional anise or fennel seeds if desired.
11. Bake in a 375-degree oven for 40-50 minutes or until golden brown. 

 These are best eaten right away but will keep in an airtight container for a week, or you can freeze them and they will keep for a month.

 
Doesn’t this sound scrumptious? If you would like a giveaway paperback of The Chef’s Secret, please email me at tudorscribe@gmail.com, and I will pick a winner. Crystal will mail the book to your home. 

And put Crystal's next novel on your radar: In the Garden of Monsters, pitched as a Gothic retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone, coming in 2024.

My Jazz Age Novel Is on Sale Today!

The Orchid Hour finds its place in the world today, and I feel proud and happy. Not that there haven't been bumps and setbacks on the road to publication. There have. And I expect more to come. But I worked hard on writing the book while taking great pleasure in doing the research. It was difficult and fun at the same time. What more can you ask for in writing fiction?

Now the story can be enjoyed as a paperback, an ebook, or an audiobook in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. 

The Amazon link is here.

For other links, go here.

“Bilyeau brilliantly evokes the intoxicating grit and glamour of Jazz Age Manhattan and layers a smooth blend of suspense and romance on top. Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review 

"A gloriously heady and intimate tale of love, loss, and family, set within one of the most fascinating periods of the 20th century." -- LoveReadingUK

Featured in Town and Country‘s “Must-Read Books of Summer 2023”

"From the family shops of Little Italy to the bright lights of Dreamland, Nancy Bilyeau takes you on a glittering tour of a bygone New York… " – Mariah Fredericks, author of The Lindbergh Nanny

"This is a novel redolent with sensuality, intrigue, and suspense. If you like Agatha Christie, you will love The Orchid Hour." -- Paulette Kennedy, author of Parting the Veil and The Witch of Tin Mountain

'Nancy Bilyeau has created a beautifully layered and utterly seductive tale… and, at its living, tender heart, a strong-willed and magnetic heroine.' – Emilya Naymark, author of Behind the Lie, finalist for the 2023 Sue Grafton Award

"Evokes the Jazz Age at its hottest" --Richie Narvaez, author of Hipster Death Rattle

"Nancy Bilyeau has become my go-to author for brilliantly written historical suspense... Read it and be seduced." - Kris Waldherr, author of Unnatural Creatures and The Lost History of Dreams

With a heroine you can’t help rooting for, a fascinating cast of characters, and a tense, high-stakes mystery at its heart, this is a book you can’t stop reading.' – Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow

"Nancy Bilyeau draws you effortlessly into a layered story, rich in historical detail, with a strong, intelligent, determined heroine at its center. I loved Zia from page one."--Barbara Claypole White, author of The Perfect Son

'The Orchid Hour… reeks with the smell of lasagna in Little Italy, the smell of cheap gin in a 1920s speakeasy, and most importantly and most delicately with the scent of orchids at midnight… her best by far, and she’d already set a high bar.' – Timothy Miller, author of The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

The Hidden Street I Chose for The Orchid Hour

 

And now I’d like to take you behind the scenes of my writing process and explain my choice of a location for my fictional nightclub, The Orchid Hour. Some of the best-known clubs of the Roaring Twenties were either in midtown (The El Fey Club) or Harlem (The Cotton Club). I contributed a guest post to author Tony Riche’s blog on Times Square of the 1920s. Read it here. But in certain ways, I wanted to model my nightclub on Chumley’s, a real-life speakeasy in the West Village. While it was favored by literary stars like Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Eugene O’Neill, it was carefully hidden. Its Barrow Street entrance was located at the end of a nondescript courtyard, and the Bedford Street entrance to Chumley’s was an unmarked door. After all, the whole point was to hide their drinking from the police! For The Orchid Hour, I wanted to pick a place closer to the main part of Greenwich Village but on a little-known street. So I settled on MacDougal Alley. It’s a cul-de-sac that runs east off MacDougal Street in the block between West 8th Street and Waverly Place. People who love Greenwich Village history cherish MacDougal Alley.

Named after a Scotsman who was a hero of the Revolutionary War, the alley was home to the stables for the great townhouses along Washington Square North beginning in the 1830s. Despite its proximity to people who would have felt comfortable in a Henry James novel, the alley was in an area considered unsafe. The newspapers complained that this part of the city was “in the nighttime infested with base and unprincipled persons, who take advantage of the darkness in consequence of the dense foliage of the trees and the dimness of the ordinary street oil lamps to perpetrate acts of violence.”  When gas lamps were installed in 1849, there was some relief. MacDougal Alley is technically a “mews,” which means it’s a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables. Around the time that horses were replaced by automobiles, MacDougal Alley became a beacon to artists, perhaps drawn by the ivy-covered brick walls and the gas lamps. Many of the buildings were turned into artists’ studios.  Here are just a few of the people who lived off MacDougal Alley: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, had a studio on the alley, prompting horrified headlines such as "Daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt Will Live in Dingy New York Alley.” A beautiful artist’s model and silent film actress named Audrey Marie Munson dubbed “American Venus” lived there around 1915. As one newspaper put it: “ ‘Venus of MacDougal Alley,’ Whose Beauty Is Embalmed in a Thousand Sculptures.” Later a man would murder his wife in hopes of marrying Munson and that dimmed her career. Isamu Noguchi, after a stay in a Japanese internment camp in Arizona, moved to a home and studio number 33. Some of his best-known works, a series of interlocking sculptures begun in 1944, were created here.  From 1949 to 1950, Jackson Pollock lived at number 9. Audrey Marie Munson Gertrude Whitney in studio What’s MacDougal Alley like now? The cobblestones were paved over, and at some point it became a private street, locked to the public, although you can peer through the gates and see its charm. The homes are very expensive. One of the properties sold for $5 million in 2009. I must admit that whenever I wander past, I hope that someone will take note of my interest and beckon. My novel The Orchid Hour will be published on August 10th.

I stopped for a peek March 2023

MacDougal Alley

Review of the Medieval Historical Novel "Hastings"

Hastings, by Griff Hosker

 

Review by Nancy Bilyeau

Like many other people, I have always perceived William the Conqueror and his Norman army as a menacing and relentless invading force that squashed the Saxons through overwhelming brute force rather than following up on a legal right to succession.

Griff Hosker’s novel Hastings at first glance, may look like an interesting take on the traditional view of 1066. It is subtitled “Conquest: Book 1” with the cover message “The Battle That Changed Everything.” This is a book coming to 1066 from a Norman perspective.

I knew that with Hosker, I would get a deeply researched and authentic medieval-age story. He has written historical novels spanning the Roman era to World War II, with my favorite series being the Lord Edward’s Archer books set in 13th-century Wales and England.

What I wasn’t ready for in Hastings were the emotional stakes of the story, which soon captured me. The protagonist, Richard fitz Malet, is a man with a complicated family background living in a complicated time of constantly shifting alliances. His father was a Norman knight, Lord Robert Malet, but his mother was English. She was the young daughter of an English housecarl, a bodyguard who served Lord Robert when he came to England. Seduced and swiftly discarded, she gave birth to an illegitimate son that the Norman family reluctantly raises, but at a distance.

There are enormous tensions springing from the circumstances of Richard’s birth. His grandfather resents the seduction of his daughter, which ruined her for marriage and broke her health, leading to an early death. Richard learns conversational English from his grandfather, the only loving family he has, which will prove crucial in later chapters. As his grandfather is responsible for teaching warrior skills and weaponry handling to the boys of the large household, he pays special attention to the training of his grandson. As he tells Richard, the Normans see the English as inferior and Richard is intended to live as a bodyguard of his half-brothers, inherently disposable. He needs the finest warrior skills obtainable in order to stay alive.

“Thanks to my grandfather, I never felt myself a Norman,” Richard tells the reader. But throughout his childhood and young manhood, he absorbs Norman standards of manhood and strengths in warfare. He respects those strengths, which made the Normans a feared group throughout Europe. However, his emotional loyalty is to his grandfather and the friends he makes himself, and later to warriors who go out of their way to look out for him, as opposed to seeing him as nothing but a human shield.

There is a great deal of tense and absorbing drama in Richard’s changing position as he slowly transforms from ignored bastard son of an obscure English girl to a formidable warrior. The Malet family is not wholly proud of those skills, especially his nasty half-brother Durand. Because Richard is not one of the “important” legitimate brothers, and these knights, squires, and housecarls often plunge into deadly conflicts, it’s by no means a certainty to the reader that Richard will escape from any encounter unscathed.

In these encounters, Hosker’s ability to describe battles--both the “big picture” and the reality of up-close fighting between men grimly trying to kill each other—really shines. He knows every detail of the weapons and armory. Those curious about William the Conqueror will find fascinating descriptions of his court and his trips to England with Richard in his retinue. These trips were diplomatic for the most part, and I was surprised by how close he was to the childless King Edward. Duke William’s claim to succeed to the English throne is outlined well.

Richard fitz Malet is more than a proficient warrior and a feared athletic combatant in a time of fierce war. He is someone of deep loyalty. While he has a good heart, there is a simmering bitterness inside Richard. I am eager to see where the next novels in Hosker’s series take this engaging protagonist.

To learn more about Hosker, go here: https://www.griffhosker.com/

Hastings on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hastings-Conquest-Book-Griff-Hosker-ebook/dp/B0C1NMYX78/

 

A Goodreads Giveaway of The Orchid Hour

 From July 15 to July 31, Goodreads is offering a giveaway of my historical novel, THE ORCHID HOUR. Twenty ebooks will be given away to the winners.

To enter the Goodreads giveaway, click here.

The early reviews of my novel are in!

'With a heroine you can’t help rooting for, a fascinating cast of characters, and a tense, high-stakes mystery at its heart, this is a book you can’t stop reading.' – Olivia Hawker, bestselling author of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow

'From the family shops of Little Italy to the bright lights of Dreamland, Nancy Bilyeau takes you on a glittering tour of a bygone New York…' – Mariah Fredericks, author of The Lindbergh Nanny

And Publishers Weekly gave the novel a starred review:

Bilyeau (The Fugitive Colors) paints a vivid portrait of 1923 New York City—particularly its insular Italian community, alluring speakeasies, and Prohibition-fueled organized crime—in this impeccably researched historical mystery. Zia De Luca, a 26-year-old widow, lives a dreary life with her in-laws and young son in Little Italy while working as a translator for a branch of the New York Public Library. Shortly after she’s asked by deputy mayor Miles G. Watkins to translate a play by Sicilian author Luigi Pirandello, Watkins is gunned down on the library steps. Due to her recent contact with the politician, Zia becomes NYPD Lt. Frank Hudgins’s primary person of interest in the murder. After a second killing much closer to her home, Zia begins to suspect that the crimes are connected to a mysterious Greenwich Village speakeasy called the Orchid Hour. Seeking answers, she starts hanging around the establishment, eventually falling in love with an employee and tasting her first morsels of happiness since her husband died. Alternating perspectives between Zia, Hudgins, and a mob stooge named Louis, Bilyeau brilliantly evokes the intoxicating grit and glamour of Jazz Age Manhattan and layers a smooth blend of suspense and romance on top. Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible. (Aug.)

The Orchid Hour will be published on August 10th!

'The Orchid Hour' Can Be Read on NetGalley

If you have an account on NetGalley, you can read my summer novel 'The Orchid Hour' now. NetGalley helps book advocates and industry professionals discover and recommend books to their audiences. If you are a bookseller, book trade professional, educator, librarian, reviewer, blogger, journalist or in the media, you can join NetGalley.

You can find The Orchid Hour here.

Here's the latest review:

"I needed this book as a New Yorker in this post-pandemic world because NYC was, and always will be, heaven on earth. Five out of five stars, as a NYC, murder mystery, and historical fiction lover. From a New Yorker’s perspective, this book is spot on when describing New York City and its famous neighborhoods, love that! The roaring jazz age of the 20’s feels like a fresh timeline when reading historical fiction. I fell in love with the main character Audenzia, right from the start. And I love libraries! So these four things made the book unputdownable for me! It was a slow burn for the first 3 chapters, and by chapter four, the tension was fast-building. My heart was in my throat as the danger got worse, but the book made me smile too, as the Italian accents were perfect. It made the story suspenseful and fun at the same time. I didn’t know what it was like to live in NYC in the 20’s, so I learned a bit as well. The danger and racism at that time was captivating to read about. Watkin’s and Audenzia’s friendship was a joy (and sad) to see develop. The book really pulled together all the many, many details about this murder mystery at the end, it left me very sad when the book was finished, not because of the ending (which was awesome!) but because I wanted the story to go on and on. For me, it was a perfect historical mystery with excellent character development. Thanks to Lume Books and NetGalley for this ARC. I volunteered to read it and give my honest opinions. #TheOrchidHour #NetGalley"