The Belgian Girls and the Kate Quinn connection

I never considered writing a historical novel until Kate Quinn sent me a signed copy of The Alice Network, a fact I am not making up. At the direction of Louise de Bettignies's grandnephew, Quinn discovered my book, Women Heroes of World War I, utilized the chapter on the great De Bettignies for her novel, and then sent me a copy by way of thanks. 

I wasn't all that interested in historical fiction at the time, but I was absolutely blown away by Quinn's portrayal of De Bettignies. I realized then that while well-written nonfiction can press a reader's face up against the window of a room, historical fiction, when done the right way, can bring the reader directly into the room. 

I decided I might try this for my favorite WWI spy, Gabrielle Petit. The result is my novel, The Belgian Girls, which has received some high praise since being published last year: 

THE BELGIAN GIRLS | Kirkus Reviews "Intriguing, disturbing and historically compelling." 

The Belgian Girls - Historical Novel Society "Beautifully written...highly recommended." 

 “The Belgian Girls” by Kathryn J. Atwood (Discovering Belgium): "...a poignant and powerfully told dual-timeline novel."

The Belgian Girls by Kathryn J. Atwood | Goodreads

And the ever-gracious Kate Quinn agreed to endorse my novel when it came out: 

Poetry Review: On the Lip of Night by Julie Esther Fisher

 

“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” 

--Kahlil Gibran

There is definitely “a dash of the dictionary” in Julie Esther Fisher’s new collection, On the Lip of Night. I know this because I had to look up an occasional word. But while encountering these exceptional poems, I spent far less time with a reference book and far more being overwhelmed with the “joy and pain and wonder” of well-written verse.

The prodigious skill of this Pushcart-nominated poet is clear in her preface poem in which she encapsulates the simultaneous exaltation and limitations of childhood in four simple lines:

A girl on a swing

watches the shadow of her legs on asphalt

She travels like a pale pint of milk through the sky

on the creaking chains of childhood

Speaking of dairy products, “At the Hour of Milk” begins with the sadness (or fear) experienced by a group of cows when their farmer first utilized electricity in the barn. Not only did the bovines sense something intrinsically wrong when bright artificial light replaced the softness of early dawn, but as the poem progresses, Fisher notes that a precious human experience was also lost:

His boy used to join him in the barn

at the hour of milk

when sweetness

instinctive in both

called lip to dipper

and they tasted brightness.

Along with its beautifully portrayed pathos, “At the Hour of Milk” juggles images of light and darkness  with effortless brilliance. The buckets meant to capture the cow’s milk in the bright light are described as “deep black holes,” a color then compared to a line of ravens standing in a line “reaching the farm/like the new electricity.”

Fisher’s masterful ability to stretch a single metaphor through an entire poem is apparent in “Bone Mountain” where she describes a monastery as “an atlas bone holding up/the heavens.” The older people there, she says, are “already half fused into the mountain’s spine.” She wonders which of her bones she should “give to the gods” and ends the poem with these lines which suggest both weight training and death:

While I weight it out

The gossip I hear

the clack of so many femur bones buried

in the mountain

As the Gibran quote implies, poetry is often rooted in pain and this is most notably evident in “Masterclass” and “Hemlines,” poems that only hint at their source of suffering; Fisher’s meanings are often hidden within her beautiful lines and take more than a single reading to discern.

Not so with “Take My Breath Away” in which Fisher presents jarringly humorous images: the breath of ancient British Queen Boudicca crashes “through the traffic at Midtown” before she parks her chariot in the poet’s driveway where it is inspected by “the AAA guy” who “breathes new life into it.”

While tripping out on Fisher’s phenomenal imagery, it’s easy to overlook her skillful use of  assonance and consonance which makes her poems a great pleasure to read aloud, such as these lines from “Save the Date”:

I shrink myself into the darkness

of the little black dress.

Death zips me in.

A new companion, he does

for me, everything but

change his mind.

He cleans with me, pays my bills. Tells

jokes, his jaws a crowd of

tombstones.

And because of its internal rhyme, the following poem title is simply fun to say, especially if you( like me) have a Chicago accent: “The landlord is at the door”

Julie Esther Fisher is a prodigiously talented poet who handles the English language like an artist utilizes paint. Her experiences and interests are extensive and her ability to create connections with imagery is exceptional. Lovers of good poetry will find themselves reading and rereading the verses in On the Lip of Night as they seek to uncover the truth beneath each beautiful line.

Julie's website

Publisher's website

This review was published by the Midwest Book Review, MBR Bookwatch October 2026, Kathryn Atwood's bookshelf. 

The Ring of Dark Elves by Victoria Randall (my review for Midwest Book Review)

In the introduction to her book, The Ring of the DarkElves, Victoria Randall states that composer Richard Wagner combined the ancient Viking Volsunga Saga with the Germanic Nibelungenlied legend to create his epic “Ring Cycle” operas. Randall has taken the same characters who have been singing Wagner’s arias on international stages since 1876 and placed them in a literary work. She is not the first modern writer to do this, but I can’t imagine anyone else creating a more accessible and beautiful version of these ancient narratives.

While reading The Ring of the Dark Elves, I was fascinated to discover just how much Tolkien had dipped into the same (as he put it) “Caldron of Story” that inspired Wagner. And while the Oxford don created his own mythology from what he discovered in that cauldron, I must admit that I have never been able to get through “The Silmarillion” though I’ve tried more than once. Though Tolkien’s story was his own, I’ve always felt that his prose was influenced by something very ancient; after all, he personally translated the Volsunga Saga into English and, while participating in two pre-Inkling literary circles, read it aloud in its original Old Norse.

Though Randall’s plot sticks closely to Wagner’s, and though there is certainly something a bit lofty about her prose, in my opinion it is more beautifully written than Tolkien’s. Consider the following excerpt from the first chapter describing Urda, guardian of the well of wisdom, as Odin leaves after his costly drink:

“She stood and watched until the shadows of night swallowed him. Tears blinded her own eyes, and she let them fall. So proud, she thought, so mighty, and so weak. She turned at last and went to sit beside the well in the darkness, as the stars began to shine in the cold remote sky.”

Or this one, describing Asgard:

“Scattered within the walls were other halls: Breidablik, where Nanna lived in lonely splendor now that Baldr was gone; Bilskirnir, where Thor lived with his beautiful Sif; and Vingolf, with its high seats for Odin’s wife Frigga and the other women of the Aesir. There he could just catch the movement of the leaves in Freya’s garden, where grew the tree with golden apples, the secret of the Aesirs’ youth and strength. Beside it stood Valhalla, many-doored, where the heroes lived who had been brought from many battles; his heart swelled at sight of it. Far beyond the cliffs, shrouded in cloud now on this blustery day, gleamed Bifrost the rainbow bridge, its smooth shape shifting and shining with color as it arched down to the lands of men.”

Speaking of mythological characters, Randall includes an exhaustive list of them at the beginning of the book, which is helpful, but each is so uniquely drawn in the text and introduced with such tension that the reader can easily keep them straight. It’s rare that a writer excels equally well at characterization, dialogue, and description, but Randall, a phenomenal storyteller, accomplishes this with seeming effortlessness.

Readers who enjoy stories deeply rooted in ancient myth told in in breathtakingly beautiful prose will not be able to stop turning the pages of The Ring of the Dark Elves.

 

"When snatched from all effectual AID!" Marianne Dashwood and Edward Ferrars read Cowper :)

Remember that bit in Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility when Marianne Dashwood (Kate Winslet) forces Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant) to read more expressively? I never Googled which poem she was torturing him with (or was he torturing her with his monotone rendering?), but I encountered it serendipitously this morning, so I thought I'd share it here. "The Castaway" by William Cowper, last stanza. Leave it to Cowper to dwell on depressing scenarios, but leave it to Screenwriter Emma Thompson to place this bit of darkness in a hilarious scene, perfectly illustrating Marianne Dashwood's craving for emotionalism: 

Obscurest night involv'd the sky,

         Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,

When such a destin'd wretch as I,

         Wash'd headlong from on board,

Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,

His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast

         Than he with whom he went,

Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,

         With warmer wishes sent.

He lov'd them both, but both in vain,

Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,

         Expert to swim, he lay;

Nor soon he felt his strength decline,

         Or courage die away;

But wag'd with death a lasting strife,

Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd

         To check the vessel's course,

But so the furious blast prevail'd,

         That, pitiless perforce,

They left their outcast mate behind,

And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;

         And, such as storms allow,

The cask, the coop, the floated cord,

         Delay'd not to bestow.

But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,

Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he

         Their haste himself condemn,

Aware that flight, in such a sea,

         Alone could rescue them;

Yet bitter felt it still to die

Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives an hour

         In ocean, self-upheld;

And so long he, with unspent pow'r,

         His destiny repell'd;

And ever, as the minutes flew,

Entreated help, or cried—Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past,

         His comrades, who before

Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,

         Could catch the sound no more.

For then, by toil subdued, he drank

The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him: but the page

         Of narrative sincere;

That tells his name, his worth, his age,

         Is wet with Anson's tear.

And tears by bards or heroes shed

Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,

         Descanting on his fate,

To give the melancholy theme

         A more enduring date:

But misery still delights to trace

   Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd,

         No light propitious shone;

When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,

         We perish'd, each alone:

But I beneath a rougher sea,

And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.

And here is the link to the hilarious moment in the film: https://youtu.be/fzQuOJIi8sI?feature=shared