Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Stefani,

I follow a page on Facebook (I think it's called Fall Rivers Historical Society) and they mentioned you wrote a new book. Please, what is the title of it and what is it about? Thanks!

Yes Mystery:

I'll reply to your question until Stefani gets around to it, since the book was written on the very computer I am using.

Due out this June, the book is a historical look at Fall River, Ma. fires from the past 170 years or so.

Fall River has had some tremendously large fires, including 2 which burnt down half of the downtown area.

I witnessed a couple of them myself, including the Richard Borden Mill, The Kerr Mill Complex, Notre Dame Church, Firestone Fire, etc.

What historical buildings (f)all (r)iver does not demolish, tear down, bulldoze or destroy, fires will do the job. We just had one this week, burning down one of the Border City Mills in the north end of the city. Again, another tremendously out of control fire.

I'll let Arthur Brown introduce the information below with.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY0JmLpQfCQ

http://www.amazon.com/Historic-Fires-Fa ... iver+fires

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra04QHuMEOM

Thanks MB!

It sounds very interesting. I do remember reading about one or two at the mill (don't remember the name of it off hand) in the Parallel Lives book.

Wow, MB, thank you for posting this information on Stefani's new book; it sounds very interesting! I have pre-ordered it through Amazon.

Can't wait to get a copy. Also looking forward to a book reading at the FRHS.

Of course, I still think Lizzie may have intended to cover the murders by burning down the house (just as she foreshadowed) while Bridget was out shopping for cheap fabric except Bridget put a kink in the plans by being sick. I never thought of what might've happened beyond the Borden house had she actually done this. I look forward to the book!!

Walter Satterthwait could not help himself but to write another book about detective Lizzie Borden.

Many may remember his 1989 famous title "Miss Lizzie". Twenty seven years later he has written another. Just released.

Below is the cover of the book and 'one' review taken from Amazon.

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review taken from Amazon

I honestly I didn’t have high hopes for this book – I actually expected it to be bad. But I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by New York Nocturne. It made for an enjoyably entertaining and light read that I found hard to put down. Even if it’s not great literature.

At the start of our story, sixteen year old Amanda is off to visit an uncle in New York for a bit of adventure while her parents travel the world and her brother stays behind to court his college sweetheart. However, the trip doesn’t go at all according to plan. Amanda suddenly finds herself very much alone and under suspicion in a strange city. Her old friend Lizzie Borden is really the only person she can trust to help her navigate the seedy underworld of New York and clear her name.

I’ve read several books where famous historical figures were included in a fictional account (both as major and minor characters) and I can say that it doesn’t always work even if you’re not intimately familiar with the subject. I’ve done a lot of research on Lizzie Borden, reading both fact and fiction: stories about her life before, during and after her famous murder trial; accounts of the trial itself; and many, many theories on what really happened that day in Fall River, MA. Armed with that kind of knowledge about a real person, it’s hard to be accepting when that person is included as a fictional character in a mystery novel. Sometimes you get the feeling that the author didn’t have a story to tell, so they retold someone else’s. I exactly didn’t feel that way about this book. The main character is young Amanda, and she is truly is the focus of the story. Though Lizzie has a lot to do with the plot, the story isn’t about her – it’s about Amanda. It also helps that every other line isn’t a cheap allusion to the famous murder trial (though of course it’s mentioned).

But as enjoyable as this book is, the reader is left wondering “why Lizzie?” This is a cute little story, and it would have been just as cute if the old friend who swooped into to help Amanda wasn’t Lizzie Borden. Any older, wealthy acquaintance or distant relative would do. I feel like the author did it simply because Lizzie Borden is a name people know. She’s interesting. She sells books. And given that another famous name of 1920s New York is also a minor character in the book, yes, it does feel a little like cheap name dropping.

Even so, that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the novel too much. I do recommend it if you’re just looking for something quick and fun to read by the pool this summer.

(As a side note, after I finished New York Nocturne, I discovered that there’s a prior book – Miss Lizzie – which tells the story of how Amanda and Lizzie first meet, which is only hinted at in New York Nocturne.)

Yes!!
And I just love to have a collection of her books on my shelf, they are so good!