Karen E. Olson, author of
An Inconvenient Wife, is the winner of the Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award and a Shamus Award finalist. She is the author of the
Annie Seymour mysteries, the Tattoo Shop mysteries, and the Black Hat thrillers. Olson was a longtime editor, both in newspapers and at Yale. She lives in North Haven, Connecticut.
Olson's new novel is
A Defiant Woman.
Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
The Tudors are clearly top my non-fiction subjects—and while my new novels are re-
tellings, I like to loosely base my plots on actual Tudor history. It was for this reason that I
recently picked up Nicola Tallis’s Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey.
Tallis’s easy narrative is more novel-like than a dry biography of the young woman who was
officially queen for nine days after Edward VI died, casting aside his half-sisters Mary and
Elizabeth in the line of succession in favor of his cousin—who did have a direct line to the
throne as her grandmother was Henry VIII’s youngest sister Mary. Jane, who was a scholar and a
linguist rivaling her cousin Elizabeth, was first a reluctant bride when her father conspired with
the Duke of Northumberland to marry her to his son—and then was a reluctant queen in the plot
that would put both her and her husband on the throne. But no matter how reluctant she was,
Jane did attempt to rise to the occasion only to be struck down by her much more powerful and
popular cousin Mary Tudor. Tallis’s recounting of Jane’s upbringing through to her fate on the
block is a worthy read for anyone interested in the Tudors.
As for fiction, I balanced out my Tudor obsession with a remarkable crime novel called The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer. I had absolutely 
no idea what to expect from this book,
as I stumbled across it and thought it might be interesting. Who knew there was an illegal egg
trade in the UK? Two braided timelines, one set in the 1920s and one today, tell the story of the
mysterious and rare Metland egg, coveted by collectors—enough so that murder is not a step too
far to obtain it. The author’s note at the end of the book is just as fascinating as her fictional
story, because she explains that it is based on a real one. Two months after finishing this book, I
find myself still thinking about it and the incredibly well drawn characters who inhabit it.
Visit
Karen E. Olson's website.
The Page 69 Test: An Inconvenient Wife.
Q&A with Karen E. Olson.
The Page 69 Test: A Defiant Woman.
--Marshal Zeringue
Annie Seymour mysteries, the Tattoo Shop mysteries, and the Black Hat thrillers. Olson was a longtime editor, both in newspapers and at Yale. She lives in North Haven, Connecticut.
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