History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

       Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing author, Meihan Boey. She is the author of The Formidable Miss Cassidy , which is the first novel in the Miss Cassidy trilogy. The first novel is about how a Scottish governess helps her employer's family who is haunted by a malevolent spirit. She has recently released, The Enigmatic Madam Ingram , which is the second novel in the  trilogy. In this interview, we discussed not only her latest novel, but also Singaporean mythology. Thank you, Mrs. Boey! What inspired you to write The Formidable Miss Cassidy ? Did you know it would be a trilogy before you started writing or did it form while you were writing it?  Yes, I did know I wanted to create a trilogy - I just didn’t know at the start whether or not I would be able to get there!  The Formidable Miss Cassidy started life as a COVID project, sent as a short story to a little Canadian indie press. Because I didn’t think a typical Canadian audience was go...

The Enigmatic Madam Ingram (Miss Cassidy #2) Author: Meihan Boey Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal  Publisher: Harper Perennial  Book Release Date: September 8, 2026 Pages: 512 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: Miss Cassidy returns to nineteenth-century Singapore to help solve another dazzling supernatural mystery in this follow-up to the award-winning novel that The Guardian called a “classic-in-waiting.”        When Letty Ingram arrives in Singapore in 1906, she is an enigma even unto herself. To the residents of the small Scottish village where she lives, she is a wealthy, half-Malay recluse who emerges from her home only for walks with her great beast of a hound. To Letty, she is a woman trying to lift a curse that causes her lose consciousness and wake up in strange places—sometimes, with blood on her hands—and no memory of what occurred.        Letty ...

Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business  Author: Dolly Parton Genre: Nonfiction, History, Autobiography & Memoir Publisher: HarperCollins  Book Release Date: 1994 Pages: 352 Source: Borrowed Synopsis: The successful country singer reveals her life since leaving home at the age of eighteen to pursue a singing career, while discussing her personal philosophies, her marriage, her friendships, and achievements.             My Review: Dolly Parton was one of America’s most beloved stars. Her death caused many people across the country to mourn her. Even Nashville International Airport is remaining their airport in her honor. She was the co-owner of Dollywood and founded the non-profit organization, Imagination Library. In this autobiography, Dolly Parton tells the story of her success. She tells of her childhood growing up poor in the Smoky Mountains. She also talks about how she got started into show business and became a hu...

The Formidable Miss Cassidy (Miss Cassidy #1) Author: Meihan Boey Genre: Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Fantasy Publisher: Harper Perennial  Book Release Date: 2025 Pages: 288 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: A Scottish governess arrives in Singapore to take up her new post, only to find a host of problems await that require her very unique skills in this award-winning and incredibly entertaining historical fantasy novel.        There has never yet been a crisis that Miss Leda Cassidy hasn’t been able to fix, be it a lovelorn young charge, perpetually distracted students, or an unruly and malevolent ghost. When she arrives at her new employer’s home and discovers the family is being terrorized by a vampiric spirit, she sets about righting the situation without delay.        But it seems that as soon as she puts one supernatural creature to rest, another appears to take its...

Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England Author: John Carmi Parsons  Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography  Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan  Book Release Date: 1998 Pages: 388 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: Medievalist feminist studies' early concentration on the lives of prominent women has more recently given way to an interest in their less exalted sisters. Historians have seemingly avoided the careers of medieval queens, creatures of romance and legend, women who enjoyed rank and wealth merely as a consequence of birth or marriage. A renewed interest in such women has, however, followed the opening of new avenues to the study of women and power in the Middle Ages. That the lives of these women will reward reconsideration has been amply proven in the works of such historians as Pauline Stafford and Janet Nelson. Eleanor of Castile studies the wife of Edward I of England, a woman eulogized since the sixteenth century as a model of ...

        Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing author, Gabriella Saab. She is the author of The Last Checkmate  and Daughters of Victory . She has recently published  Survivor's Guild , which tells the story about of two Titanic survivors. One of them is a wealthy heiress, and the other is a Lebanese immigrant. They are tasked with finding the mother of a baby boy whom they have saved. In this interview, we discussed the Titanic as well as the events that were going on in Lebanon during that time. Thank you, Mrs. Saab! What inspired you to write The Survivor’s Guild? I’m half Lebanese, and while attending a conference through the Southern Federation of Syrian Lebanese American Clubs, I learned about the Lebanese aboard the Titanic . I never knew there were Lebanese aboard the ship, so it was the perfect opportunity to explore a lesser-known side of the story we all know. But I didn’t want to tell a story of only the Titanic ; I wanted to know what li...