Take Five: Greer Macallister and THE THIRTEENTH HUSBAND

We’re delighted to bring you an interview with longtime WU contributor and author Greer Macallister to highlight her upcoming release THE THIRTEENTH HUSBAND, out Tuesday, August 6th. The book is getting plenty of terrific pre-release buzz, including this:

“Greer Macallister’s Aimee Crocker is exactly the kind of sassy, strong heroine you want to stay up late into the night gabbing with – and soaking up every detail of her epic life. I loved adventuring with Aimee from San Francisco to India and Japan, walking in the shoes of a woman who lived and loved life to the fullest. This is compulsively readable historical fiction!” ― Kerri Maher, USA Today bestselling author of All You Have to Do is Call

Sounds like the perfect summer read, doesn’t it? Ready to hear more? Here’s Greer:

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

GM: The Thirteenth Husband was inspired by Aimée Crocker, the most scandalous tattoo-sporting railroad heiress of the Gilded Age. She spent the better part of five decades traveling the world, spending millions, and marrying and divorcing a succession of men in their twenties. I actually had to tone down her story to make it believable fiction. She was something else.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

GM: There’s more to Aimée than meets the eye — people think of her as confident and devil-may-care, but her public shenanigans are masking private pain. She’s also reckoning with a prophecy that told her that her thirteenth husband would bury her, and haunted by the ghostly presence of a woman in white that appears to her before times of great tragedy in her life. (Both of which are based on incidents from the real Aimée’s life!)

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

GM: Aimée says early in the novel that she gets no sympathy in the press because people feel like the rich don’t have problems. Her money gave her the kind of freedom few women of her era enjoyed, but she was judged harshly in public and private for the choices she made. Her story has heartbreak, loss, scandal, death, secrets, poisoning, shame, custody battles, and more — a lot to overcome.

Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

GM: My previous biographical historical novel was based on the life of Kate Warne, a pioneering private detective who left no letters or diaries and barely graces the historical record. Aimée, on the other hand, was quoted widely in the newspapers of her day and even wrote a (highly selective) memoir. Figuring out when to take Aimée’s word for something and when to leave it out if it couldn’t be substantiated was a constant challenge throughout the writing process.

Q5: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

GM: After writing historical fiction for the better part of a decade, I shifted to writing epic fantasy, and it was such a relief to really fully make things up! But when I got the idea to write about Aimée and shift back to historical fiction, I was worried I’d have trouble operating within the constraints of history again. Instead, it felt natural, and because I was working with the blueprints of Aimée’s life, it was a real joy to have a possible structure to start from. So now I know that both genres are well within my wheelhouse, given the right project.

Congratulations on your new book, Greer! Thank you for sharing this enticing advance peek.

WU Community, you can learn more about Greer’s latest novel on her website, or by following her on Facebook or IG, or by following the buy-links below. Read on! 

Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between Kathleen Bolton and Therese Walsh in 2006. Since then, the site has grown to include ~50 regular contributors and a variety of guests on rotation throughout a given year.

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