Bookwild - Secrets, Spirits, and the Stories We Inherit: Olesya Salnikova Gilmore's The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

This week, I talk with Olesya Salnikova Gilmore about her historical-suspense The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru. We dive into: Her writing process as a "plantser" Why she's drawn to dark genres: historical fiction, gothic, fantasy, mystery How blending genres creates tension and unpredictability How she has experienced and writes about the “in-between” feeling of not fully belonging to one culture How she processed grief through this story Her research of Slavic folklore and Western spiritualism movements The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru Synopsis Spirited twenty-something Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya, own a tearoom on rue Daru in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina’s mother’s untimely death. By day, the women serve tea, mostly to members of the bustling Russian émigré community, but when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform séances for their loyal clientele. Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for answers about the disappearance of their father, the Grand Duke and cousin to the murdered last Tsar of Russia. Zina, eager to learn more about the spirit world and her powers, performs the séance. She is able to summon the Grand Duke, but to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop, and he seems to know something sinister about her mother’s death. As Zina delves into her family’s hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening Zina and her grandmother’s found family, home, and tearoom, not to mention their very lives. Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

This week I've got to talk with Alessia Solnikova Gilmore about her new Gothic historical suspense novel, The Fortune Tellers of Rue de Rue. If you love your suspense and you also love it when it's in a historical context, you are going to love this one. This is what it's about. Spirited 20-something Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valli, own a tea room on Rue to Rue in Paris, where they have lived quietly since Zina mother's untimely death. By day, the women serve tea, mostly to members of the bustling Russian immigrant community. But when dusk falls, they divine fortunes and perform seances for their loyal

clientele. Then the charming Princess Olga and her brother arrive, searching for answers about the disappearance of their father, the Grand Duke, cousin to the murdered last Tsar of Russia. Zena, eager to learn more about the spirit world and her powers, performs the seance. She is able to summon the Grand Duke, but to her horror, he starts to haunt the shop, and he seems to know something sinister about her mother's death. As Zena delves into her family's hidden past, dark secrets are unearthed, threatening Zena and her grandmother's found family, home and tea room, not to mention their very lives. I also think that if you love Russian history, if you love Parisian history or French history, you will also love this book a lot.

But really, if you just love Gothic suspense with seances and spirits, you are just going to want to read this one. But now, let's hear from Alessia. Well, I am so excited to talk about the fortune tellers of Rue de Rue, which I keep pronouncing up those last two at the end. So that's why I said it so specifically. It's totally fine because people are like... like, oh, I know some French. I think they'd say that to just kind of be like, oh, so do you, right? And I'm like, no, I don't. I'm really, really bad at French if my husband's right.

I'm like really bad at French. So yeah, so you're fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know any. I am working on my Spanish, but I don't. I mean, what I put in there, my mother-in-law looked at. Oh, nice. Well, Before we get into the book itself, I do always want to get to know a little bit about you. So what was your journey to writing like? Yeah, that's a really good question. And for me, it was not a simple journey because I actually, so I started my first book right out of college. And I just didn't know what to do with it.

I didn't know how to finish it. I didn't know how to start. structure a book properly. And so I just kind of left it at, I think, 150 pages and went to law school. So went to law school, practiced law at a big law firm in Chicago. And I just realized I didn't love it. It wasn't a good fit for me. And my husband actually at the time, my husband now and at the time he told me, he said, you know, you're so unhappy. Why don't you write? I mean, you've always wanted to write. I was an English major. I always wanted to write a book. Yeah. And he encouraged me to write. And if he hadn't encouraged me, I don't know if I ever would have like had the guts to start, you know?

And I had very little time. I'd work, you know, 70, 80 hour weeks. And it did make me happy he was right. It was the one thing I looked forward to on the weekends, sometimes evenings, even lunch breaks. I remember I would sneak in and write a little bit. But the journey itself was long, right? Because I actually left my job because of just health issues that I started having as a result. And I had some savings and I was like, you know what? I'm going to try this publishing thing, this writing thing. And it took me a couple books to get published.

But I'm still living and trying the writing thing, the publishing thing. So hopefully I'll keep doing it. Yeah. That is a really, I mean, that's an inspirational story. I know some people, like, it's nice to get to a point where like your other career, essentially like you're saying, you had savings, allows you to write because I feel like it just takes so much creative brain space. So that's really cool. I think so too. And I think it's the support network around you. I never underestimate it because if not for my husband, And providing that initial push of being like, you know what, you can do this. I know you and you're unhappy and I want you to be happy and I want you to do something that you really love and are passionate about. And I've always been passionate about writing books.

And my mom too, I can't, you know, she stays with my kids right now and I'm writing. And it's just such a huge helps me. My parents in general and my in-laws as well. I mean, it's a whole community. It really does take a lot of them. village when when you say that. Yeah. So what did your writing process kind of develop into, which is kind of the like, are you a plotter? Are you a pants or like how do you, or is it different for you every book? I think I'm a plancer. Is that the right way to say that? Yes. Yeah, so I'm a mix

of the two, definitely. I start with being a plotter. I actually saw that first book I was telling about the one I started right after college. I just, you know, just wrote. I had no concept of what a story even looked like. And for me, that just didn't work just because I couldn't finish it. I didn't see a way forward for the story. And so ever since the second book I wrote, which never saw the light of day either, but it really, it was the first book that I plotted. And for me, having a plot, having a structure, having that kind of pitch for the book, which I kind of learned when I was querying literary agents. And now I use a pitch as just, it's invaluable to me in understanding what my idea is and can I sell it to my agent. And so that to me is an important

process as well as writing kind of the synopsis, the summary for the story, thinking through my characters. And it's a really, it's a really long process for me, which kind of starts with some noodling, some idea generation. It takes months to just even just think about the story and kind of think about what I wanted to be. And of course, the characters, too. What the characters, you know, what are they going to be like? What direction do I want to take? What direction are they taking themselves in? And so all that, I think, takes a lot of time and thinking before I even put pen to paper. But I'm very much a proponent of planning and having that structure planned out. And then once I start writing, I'm very much a pancer. I mean, it's wild, right, to think about

because it's all plotted, right? Just follow it. And I never, ever do. And it starts to deviate about page 100 in every book where I rewrite the first 100 pages and I actually saw an interview with with with with with with with a famous author of the writer of Searcy if you've ever read that. And she actually talked about that too where she where she you know essentially rewrites the first hundred hundred hundred fifty pages. So it's it's kind of my process I guess. And then after that, I sometimes follow the outline that I have for me. You know, I do like a loose chapter by chapter outline, a couple sentences each.

But a lot of times it changes because the story and the characters grow and change and I get to know them. And so, yeah, so some things I follow and some things I'm like, yeah, you know, this is taking too long. I'm going to expedite this. I'm going to cut these couple chapters and we're just going to meet the characters here instead of here. And so it's just kind of, it's a very alive. process, which for me, I need because I need the surprise in order to keep being interested in what I'm writing. That's what I have heard people say that, where they're like, if I don't surprise myself a little bit while I'm writing, like, it's just not going to be as fun for me or like, or they kind of

feel like that's what helps the readers be surprised, too, is them not knowing where they're headed with it. So I think it's so fascinating all the different ways you can approach it. I really do. And I think, like, marrying the two concepts for me, I finally understood, okay, this is my process, this is okay, because I really got it at first. I know. I have, I've heard people too who are true like pancers in the sense that it's like follow their heart from the beginning. And there's like all this like shame around it sometimes for people who are like, I should plot. And I'm like, if you're finishing a book, like there's no should about it. Like do what you want to do. I feel like it's almost like the whole like this may be a strange comparison, like morning people and night, night owls or whatever.

Like there's nothing like inherently better about waking up in the morning, but like we act like maybe there is. But there's really. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's whatever works for you, whatever helps you like finish a book, which is like something a lot of people never do. Then I think you just go with what works for you. I agree. And to also be comfortable with your process and to accept it. Because I think it took a lot of frustration on my part. Why do I have to rewrite these first hundred pages? Like, I'm wasting so much time. And now I'm realizing it's not time wasting. It's just my process.

I'm getting to know the story. I'm getting to know the characters. It's not time wasting. And once I was able to accept that, I actually am just much more at peace. If that makes sense. It's kind of like not debying into like, it's almost like a capitalist.

idea or like feeling that like it's wasted if it's not the final thing but like actually like you're saying that you don't have to have like a complete thing for it to have been it's true it's true so much goes into the creative process especially in the beginning and so everything counts everything that's what I tell myself I think clearly it's true for you um I did see so you've written you write all kinds of genres you write fantasy do the historical historical fiction element. I think you're drawn to the Gothic as well. So what about those genres kind of like intrigue you? Well, I really like dark genres. If that makes sense. I love just, I mean, I think that's the fiction that I started reading, right? I think we all write books that

one that we read and one that we want to see out in the world more of. And so I mean, I've always loved historical. It was one of my first loves. I mean, I just remember Philippa Gregory, the other Bolin girl, the tutors. I mean, this is the stuff I started with. And that's the stuff that drew me in to reading and especially, you know, reading in English, too, because I started with Russian when I came to the states. And so historical fiction really, really drew me in because I love visiting a different world. love like even now if I'm looking at fiction I want something different than what I know because well what I know and we're surrounded by depressing news you know you know just sad sad things yeah and I just need to immerse myself in something else and that's usually a different time

and place I love books that you know take take place in other countries and other time periods. And I love the Gothic, too, because I think it's able, it's, it's, it does two things, I think, which is it makes us face our fears in, in a totally isolated way. And it also is able to get at some things that are really important to us as modern people in contemporary, living contemporary times, and to really comment on them without repercussion. You know what I mean? To just do, to whatever, you know, and to really make that comment about mortality, about the world we live in, you know, about women and their rights and powers and all of that. And so I think all of these genres really do that.

And that's why I love the mix of the Gothic next to historical, next to magic fantasy. Yeah. because it's just a really natural, and I love setting them in the real world because it's just closer to me. I mean, I love some high fantasy, but to me it's just like it doesn't touch me in the same way as these books said in the real world because that's what we know, right? It just seems much more real and tangible to me. And so I think that's why I set them in the real world too. And yeah, I just, I love mixing genres. Like I love that kind of mix of things that is just so fascinating to me.

I feel like it keeps it, even especially as a reader, it keeps it very interesting when there are multiple genre or multiple genre tropes even happening. It almost like it almost adds to the suspense of it even if it's not necessarily suspense, which this one definitely has suspense. Yeah. Yeah, no, and I love, yeah, the suspense element is a lot of fun. The mystery and suspense element is really fun with those genres. And so I'm really glad that I found that in this book. I had a little bit of that in my second book, but, but, but, hey, I definitely, like, made a home in it in this book. I was looking up actually, I just read Saltwater.

I don't know if you've heard of that one. It's by Katie Hayes. It's a, oh, all wonder, yes. Yeah, yeah, it's not fantasy. It's actually like mystery thriller, but it takes place on, And it has just a very nice family drama at its center. And I just, I love that, you know, I just, I love that added element of the family drama too. I, like that along with, because that's what we know, right? Like all the drama, like all my drama comes from my family.

I'll tell you that much. I just find it a lot of fun to do. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned, I think it might have been off air. I can't remember. part at this point. But I know you were born in Moscow and it said you mostly grew up in the U.S. though. And then this book is taking place in France, but it is Russian. How do I pronounce it? Immigreys, yeah, emigreys. Yeah, I think. I'm like, sometimes I'm glad I sometimes are happy when I have the audiobooks, then I'm like, okay, I do know how to say this word. Yes. No, I'm. I love audiobooks. Yeah.

So there are multiple, like, cultural elements going on in this one. And can you kind of talk about, like, it sounds like some of your personal experiences might have inspired that part. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess in terms of personal, you know, that's why I think I wrote the book is, you know, fortune telling, I realized that, well, first, I didn't really explore the concept of Slavic fortune telling before in my other books. And so it's like, okay, it's time. And once I started looking at it, I was like, oh, my God, my great aunt did this. Oh, my God, my grandmother did this. I found out this rich tradition of women in my family doing fortune telling.

I mean, who knew? And I just never associated like that, you know, and I just never thought about it like that. Oh, like, it's pretty weird that my great aunt put an egg under my sister's bed so she wouldn't sleepwalk, that she read my palm and that I knew I'd give. married you know uh to like my husband like it's just weird and but and all these things came true it's just very strange but that's like why why i really wanted to write it is i want to explore those traditions and practices and so similarly um you know i decide to set the book in paris specifically because first of all i wanted to set a book outside of russia you know my first two are set in russia

I was kind of ready to go beyond. And I love Paris. And my husband goes, yeah, well, we can go to Paris next time. You know, if you set a book in Paris, we can go to Paris because I was begging him to go to Paris. I just stopped by, you know, like for one day when I was traveling, never really spent a lot of time. I really, really want to go to Paris. I want to explore Paris. And well, just write a book there.

I'm like, done. Okay. And so after that. Somewhere. Yes, yeah. And I discovered this community of emigres that lived in Paris. And it was really perfect because I'm an immigrant. You know, I came over, like you said, when I was seven years old in the States. So I grew up in the States, but I could go back and visit my grandparents, my family. And so, you know, I know this life intimately, you know, that my characters deal with. I know starting a business. My parents have a business. So it was very close to me in many. ways to talk about these this family of immigrants both when they first came over the grandmother vala and her daughter svetlana and of course the granddaughter who grew up who was born and grew up in paris and i mostly grew up in the states so she was very familiar to me that kind of being

surrounded by your culture which you know we lived in like this town close to chicago where there's a lot of you know russian speakers a lot of russian Belarusian, Ukrainian. I mean, all kinds of Slavic speakers there. And, you know, I didn't even know the U.S. What? I mean, there was Russian speech all around. We would go to the Russian store. We'd go to the Russian music school. We'd go, you know, so things like that. And my character really experiences that where, you know, her grandmother owns a tea room. The patrons and clients are mostly, and fortune-telling clients are mostly Russian. Why do you know you live? you live in a new place, in a new country.

And that was very intimately familiar to me. And it wasn't until, you know, I started going to school and really learning English and having American friends that I was like, oh, there's like this whole new world where it's actually America. And, you know, so it was my character, Zina, really, really experiences that, that kind of disconnect. And the feeling that I really wanted to get at

that's very important is sometimes you don't feel like your either culture because I feel like that all the time you know I go back to Russia and I haven't been since the war started of course but I go back to Russia and I don't feel Russian I'm here you know I think I feel more American than ever actually now but but I still feel sort of that disconnect you know you don't really belong to either kind of culture and that can be very isolating and very difficult and so that's why she has her best friend Katzia Katarina, that, you know, they kind of hang out and are able to really connect to each other

because there's similar age and similar situation. Yeah. That's such a cool answer. And I actually really segue as well into one of my other questions, which is like Zina's story is she's like uncovering her own past as she tries to figure out kind of what's happening. of what's happening with this spirit that appears in a seance. And so she's a fortune teller, but she's also someone who's like looking back and learning about herself. Yes. And so it sounds like a lot of that was kind of similar to your experience. So was that kind of what you went into

writing? Was that like part of the idea? Or did that her character's journey develop as you started like researching. You know, I knew I wanted it to be about family secrets. Um, just because I think family secrets is such a huge part of the culture. Um, I mean, it's really fascinating because I, you know, I read one one review that was like, well, they just keep too many secrets from each other. It's just not believable. And it's like, listen, I saw that. Listen, listen, please let me tell you about. I'm like, Maybe this wasn't the world for you. So I did not know many huge, massive, life-changing secrets that my grandparents kept that I only found out after they died. Wow.

People kept secrets starting in, I mean, throughout his, but like, we're talking about Russia. So we're talking about an extremely ultra-conservative, ultra-policed country even before Soviet time. you had, you know, the Ahrana, you had the, the, the, uh, czar's, um, you know, guard, um, that would go after anyone that was contrary to the regime, to the imperial regime. Um, you had, you know, people had to hide everything. And, um, you see that in a court that was, you know, in a royal court, for example, that was very conservative. Um, you know, uh, they hid sexuality.

They hid, I mean, affairs. I mean, everything was hidden. Everything was secret. And, you know, regular non-royal people, too. Oh, yeah. And so, and then, of course, you have the Soviet times and everyone, well, has heard. Most people have heard that it was an extremely difficult time. Secrets became currency. People traded in secrets to survive. You would inform on your neighbors, your friends, your friends. friends, your family members, and that's actually at issue in my previous book, The Haunting a Moscow house, where I really explored that concept. Secrets kept you alive. They also got you in trouble. And so I think this carried over because, I mean, my parents, I still don't know if

they've told me everything. I mean, my husband and I always joke, but like, we do not know anything. Yeah. You know, because it's, the culture really is, secrets are like whether you like it or not, whether you're doing it, like, whether you like admit that you're doing it, maybe you're subconsciously doing it, where you're keeping things that maybe aren't societally, you know, societally like okay or according to expectations or maybe your view of what those expectations are. And especially in the 1920s where you had a. very changing, you had a changing world all over the world, right? The world was changing after the Great War, after the First World War. And so, and in Russia, especially with the revolution and civil war that followed. And so you're having a people that are very secretive, even with their family members. And so that was a massive part of it. And so, yeah, I really wanted my character to find out these kind of family secrets that are, um, are, are at the core of her family that are really coming out and really kind of, like, affecting her life

and threatening it. And so she, you know, and that's the thing that will bring her and her grandmother closer because at the beginning, they're close, but they don't really understand each other. And I wanted this kind of everything out in the open. I wanted them to achieve closeness through that. Yeah. And I think that's my goal with like maybe every book I write is this, this idea of a family and family love and family reckoning, you know, that affect the present and the characters in the present. I think it's going back to that review too. I think it's really easy, especially because you see reviews like that in all kinds of books. That's like all they had to do was community.

Well, wouldn't that be easy for the entire world, you know, if we just communicated. That's where I'm coming from. I think it's a lot. I think it's very easy to read a book and be like, or even nonfiction and be like, all they had to do was like tell each other. And I'm like, there's going to be a time in that person's life where like they just aren't going to want to tell someone something. And it's like, that's what it's easier said than done when it's. And then and then what you were saying about living in really conservative societies as well, of course you have to have them, because you're talking about authoritarian regimes that have random rules that don't make sense. Absolutely.

So, of course, there are going to be those secrets. And when you're dealing with secrets that have to do with murder, I have not discovered such secrets in my own family, thank God. But when you're talking about murder, I mean, I'm a lawyer, right? Like, I know that if you know things, that's not good. So why would her grandmother tell her anything if there was this blight on their business and home? And so, you know, yeah, so that was definitely from the beginning. I wanted that tension between them where the grandmother knows much more than she realizes, but she doesn't know everything, right?

And then the granddaughter is trying to find out her family so that, you know, she can kind of come to terms with where she's from, you know, who her family truly is and how she can move on with her own life, right? Because I just feel like our family holds so many answers not only about like across generations, you know, I think it holds a lot of answers about ourselves and sometimes how to move forward. And I mean, that's something that I'm like working on right now personally is how do I come to terms with certain decisions that my parents made, for example, you know? And I think that's just something that that allows me to come to terms with my past and move on to the future that I want. Yeah. So I think, so I think, yeah, from the beginning, I wanted that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've kind of been talking about Zina and her grandma and their relationship. And it is a dynamic. Obviously, you just said it's one of the dynamics that changes the most across the like story arc. But they kind of always have like a fun-ish dynamic. So what was it like building out like their relationship and their dynamic?

Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but it was also very painful for me because it's definitely. based on my own grandmother. So it's my mom's mom, and she died during COVID. So I actually never got to see her one last time. I was actually going to see her April. And March, you know, COVID started in March 2020, and I was going to see her. I had tickets to see her in April. And long story short, but then I got pregnant, and I couldn't make the trip.

And then I couldn't make the trip for her funeral either. So it was a lot of, I would say, closure that needed to be explored. And so I wanted to write, you know, at first, actually, this book was supposed to be all three generations of women. It was supposed to be the grandmother, the mother, the daughter, slash granddaughter. And I realized actually the mother, I'm very close to my mom, so it has no indication of like my relationship with my mom. but she's at the heart of the mystery so I wanted her to be more mysterious right and I realized that the core of the book was really the grandmother and the granddaughter dynamic and that's kind of where I wanted it to be because I wanted this book to be about my grandmother and about my

very special relationship with her I was very close to her I lived with her for the first years of my life because my parents lived with my grandparents. And so that relationship, even after we left for the States, was always just very special to me. And she was a spitfire. I mean, my grandmother was a spitfire. She was just, she was spunky. She had a sense of humor. She was strong. She was a doctor. So she totally knew what was what. And I just always looked up to her like she was beautiful, she was talented. I mean, she just, she was everything, you know, everything to me. She cooked, you know, she was a great cook. And so I hope I got at that kind of quirky relationship because I feel like that was kind of, you know, my grandmother and me, you know, we kind of just

laugh together and just, yeah, talk about very serious things too. But, but that relationship definitely, definitely sparked it and influenced it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry you didn't get to see her another time, but it sounds like it was nice to at least kind of get to write a little bit about her, even though it's fiction, obviously. Yeah, yeah. No, it definitely, you know, it provided, I think, a lot of closure to me just because I kind of, you know, it brought up a lot of memories, but really good memories. And I realized, you know what, I think I was a good granddaughter. And I couldn't see her the last time. time and, you know, but I talked with her. We were always in contact. And, you know, I think she really was, she really was happy in the end. And I think that's what matters. And, you know, I dedicated this book to her, too. So I think she would be really happy. She unfortunately died before my first book, before I found out that my first book would be published. So, but, but I got to announce the publishing

of that book, The Witch and the Zar, actually on the day that she died. Oh my gosh. It's insane. That is wild. But this is why the story is about ghosts, too, is because I feel like we still live with the ghosts of our departed family. And I feel like it's just such an important concept for me and kind of concept that I continue to study in my books. Yeah, definitely. The other elements that kind of comes in is Princess Olga and her brother as well. And they are the ones who are kind of trying to. to get answers through the fortune tellers. And so they're and they are loosely tied to like

historical events as well. So what was what kind of research did you have to do? What was it like writing characters that are like tied to real historical like tragedies? Yeah. Yeah. No, so when I started researching 1920s Paris, you know, one of one of the things that, things I found, I did find the existence of fortune tellers and I, the Russian fortune tellers, Russian emigre fortune tellers. So that was a really cool thing to find. And then of course there was, you know, Paris really was the capital of the Russian emigre world. I mean, so these people went, so I guess I'll back up. And people that were against the Soviet regime. So a lot of times it was aristocrats nobles sometimes it was former Romanovs like my brother and sister are sometimes

regular intellectuals teachers professors you know some people in the army who were very you know I guess loyal to the czar and monarchy so I mean it was all kinds and a lot of just regular people too I mean I know my great grandmother actually They used to, I think, be farmers and they owned the land. And they were actually evicted from their farm and their land by the Soviets. And they were regular, you know, regular people that obviously had no noble roots or upbringing or anything else or even intellectual ones. And so that's just an example of it was a lot of people that were displaced, that were exiled, that chose to leave. Kind of, you know, a lot of that is happening now again as well. And so, um, And a lot of them went everywhere. I mean, you know, you see a lot in London. You see a lot in Toronto and New York. We're big ones, big locations, as well as different parts of Asia as well.

But a big capital was Paris. That's where they all went. Why? Because it was familiar. They would go on trips to Paris before the revolution. They would, you know, have houses there. They knew people there. They spoke French from them.

the cradle, they knew the language. So a lot of them went to Paris and including a lot of Romanovs. And it was even, as I found by doing this research, it was the unofficial emigrate capital, you know, Russian emigrate capital of the world where all these Romanovs were there and they would vie with each other for power because no one thought this was permanent. People thought they'd return to Russia. The monarchy would return. and they'd be the next, you know, kind of czar or Zerino or whatever. And so, yeah, so I kind of went about, you know, doing a lot of, like, secondary research. Helen Rappaport is a genius.

She's a British researcher that researches a lot of Russian history. And she's just fantastic. So, you know, a lot of her research, she has a book out that's basically about Russian exiles living in Paris, both before the revolution and after. So that was kind of the main source for me. And after that, I just kind of, you know, I found a lot of emma gray writers, for example, like Nina Berberova. She's actually in the book as one of Baba Vallas clients. And she actually is a real author. And I read her work just to kind of get a sense of the emigre world. She would write a lot about, you know, the Russian emigrees and their life in Paris and she actually eventually moved

to the States. So very interesting life there. But yeah, so I did a lot of the first person, I guess first, primary primary research by reading actually authors of female, very great authors that lived in Paris. So that was very fascinating. Yeah. Olga and Alec were based on real people, real Romanovs that were in Paris. They were trying to get their money back. They kept thinking that there was a fortune that was hidden in Paris for them. And then they actually left a bunch of their fortune in Russia. So actually one of them, so one of them was basically friends with Felix Yusupov, who of course famously was one of the murders of Rasputin. And they went back to Russia. to get their fortune.

And I mean, it's this dangerous heist where they go back to one of their houses, unearth this fortune, run away. I mean, it's really the stuff of, you would think it's all fake, but this stuff happened. And so I didn't need to make up a lot here. It's all there in history where these people, you know, were desperate. They were in a new country, in a new world. world where, you know, the monarchy has fallen and they no longer, you know, have their

houses. They no longer have their money. They're, they had to flee. And now they're in Paris and they're grasping to get back to Russia, get back to, you know, being princesses and other royals, get back to having power. And then, of course, get their fortunes back. Definitely. It's, I'm kind of laughing because the one other time I had this conversation or what I'm about to say was with an author called Alessia Leuzna and she wrote Glitter in the Dark, which is like, it's kind of like a noir in the 1940s, I think.

Yes, yes, I remember that book. Yeah. Yeah. And I go. Right. I think it was like at the beginning of or it was like at the end of 2024, maybe. I can't totally remember. Um, but I was having, I, I didn't used to read very much historical fiction. And then hers might, hers was kind of part of it. And so was, uh, the line women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali was actually another one. Not that everyone needs to know what brought me to historical fiction. But when I was talking with Alessia about her book, I was like, I was like, I think there was this like archaic idea in my brain that like historical fiction wouldn't be as interesting or like less crazy things. things were happening. And it's like, of course that's not the case. And like, of course people were making like rash decisions or greedy decisions or like corrupt decisions. Like we're humans. We've been doing this this whole time. And that's kind of what got me more into some historical fiction where kind of what you said, I also like that it's putting me somewhere else. Like I think when you read voraciously, it's fun to read in different cultures or different cultures and different time periods.

So I think that's, I think it's easy to forget that like humans have been messy since we were a thing. So there's like always intrigue. Absolutely. And I always laugh at reviews, speaking of reviews again, that I like, I don't believe this happened. And it's like, well, yeah, it happened. And I always laugh too because sometimes I'll put something in a book and my editor will be reading and she'll be like, you know, I don't think we should do that because that never, you know, like, that's just not believable to me. me and I'm yeah but it really happened yeah and um and and and she's like really but maybe we should just tone it down because people aren't going to believe it but that's what's cool about historical

fiction is it's our imagination yes but but the root of it is did happen it is based in history and I just find that's so cool how we can really make those parallels to our modern time because the best historical fiction does that right it really connects our present to our past and that's why it's a big theme of my work is is how the past connect the the present connects to the past yeah it's unavoidable whether you want to know the past your your past or the world's past or not like it still matters a lot yeah it kind of remind me well this conversation is i recently listened to uh kindred by Octavia Butler, which is, it's her novel of a woman in the 1970s who basically wakes up, or no, it's just all of a sudden transported to essentially a plantation in the South in the

1800s. But a big theme of the book is like even all the stuff she starts realizing about her ancestral past, it's, it all matters for her present, even though she didn't know all of the things basically. I really like narratives that do that, whether it's with type travel or just going writing historical fiction essentially. That sounds fascinating. I'm definitely going to have to put that on my list because that sounds really good. It's heavy. It's about slavery. So, or there's a lot of that. So there's just that. That's just what I always tell people. And she's kind of considered, like that one was kind of considered the first neo slave narrative, like the first time that fiction was really exploring it.

So there's just that to know going into it. Yeah, yeah. But with like with the seances and with the different, the kind of magical realism elements, which I hesitate to say too, because when you were talking to about like finding out about that and how that stuff was even working for you or she was telling your future,

I think it's really easy. I'm trying to figure out the kindest way to say this, but especially in America and especially like if you're white and maybe Christian, it's so easy to think of anything else as just like magical realism or mythology or whatever. So I feel like it's also kind of is real for some people, but that whole, my whole circumventing there, what was it like kind of like, or researching the seances or was it mostly just stuff that you remembered? Yeah, no, I definitely researched. The fortune telling in the Slavic world was definitely something I researched.

I found this really, really great source. It's a lady, I think, in England that did a whole survey of fortune telling in Russian, specifically Russian history. I think it's from 1750 to early 1900. And that was really fascinating for me to learn about just the different traditions and how they're also tied to a lot of literature I know, like by famous author, famous Russian authors like Alexander Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, many others have those elements in their stories and their books. And so to find out the origins of some of those beliefs and traditions and my own. you know, beliefs and traditions that women of my family, it turns out practice, was a really, was a very intentional process in this book. And then spiritualism, I also studied just kind of the history of spiritualism, which was fascinating. I mean, I just, I did not know. I mean,

there's a couple books that have come out in the last couple years about, you know, London Sand Society, for example, by Sarah Penner and a few others. that really, you know, explore that spiritualism, the height of spiritualism, which was 1850s, I think, London and America as well. And so that was really cool for me to find and to kind of marry the two, which I really wanted to do just because of the time period where I was in. The 1920s, I mean, we talked a little bit about this before, but like it was a time where a lot of countries lost a lot of men. and this is including France and Russia. And so you have, you had this re, I guess, reinterest. Can I say that?

Yeah, re-resurgence, yeah, in spiritualism. So people would do seances. They'd try to talk to disappeared, loved ones, kind of like what I have in the book, where, oh, the soldier disappeared. We never heard from him. You know, let's summon him and see. you know and um yeah or people were looking for family members i mean that was a big thing in the emigre world in paris where you had people that were that didn't know if their family in russia survived you know

maybe they were separated during travel travel was very arduous from russia to paris okay it took it was through many countries like constantinople at the time like asia like syphi I mean, you really had to go around. Sometimes the south. So you went through Crimea in the southern countries. So it was very different how people got away. And sometimes it would include getting lost, getting separated. Maybe someone was sick and they didn't travel that day.

And they traveled the next day. And did they find each other or not? So actually it was a big part of the Russian community at the, the time to have notices at the church that I describe the Alexander Nefsky Cathedral, which actually still exists in Paris. I visited it. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. So you have gone to Paris. Yes. Yes, I did. I did. I made him go right away. Yeah, I decided on the book. And I was like, here's the story. Let's go. I love that. All right. Of course I did. No, that was the first think I did. Maybe a little too fast just because I didn't have everything and I probably would have

gone to more places had I know that I would include them in the book. But I really wanted to go to Paris. Yeah. So it was, yeah, it was very fascinating research and it really all like kind of came together. In this book, unlike the other ones I've written before or since, actually, this story just came together. like I just kind of knew what I wanted to write it all came together like historically folklore fortune telling spiritualism and oh okay my character yeah she's she's gonna she's gonna talk to the dead that's her that's her talent that's her goal really wanted to include that aspect it was just such a fun part of fortune telling and you know spiritual a spiritual belief is is this idea of

spiritualism and seances and talking to the dead so yeah no it was really it was really fascinating research. I didn't get bored once. I mean, it was just so, so rich. Yeah. That's what I just love, man, I've been saying it too with nonfiction. Like, one of, one of the things that it's been exciting for me getting into more nonfiction, too, is like, just like so many other things. It's a genre with so many subgenres. So I think I always thought of it as one thing. And now I'm like, oh, sometimes it's just that someone got really excited about some subject matter. was like let me write all of this information that I know and I just like relate to that and I also feel like when someone else is excited about a subject you kind of end up excited with them too so totally

that's fun fiction too obviously yeah and I think you know doing research um in a more recent time timeframe just because so my first book was medieval russia I mean that was just as dry as dry could get I mean except for the fairy tale research that I did for that because it had a witch at the center, Baba Yaga, Malian, Slavic witch. And like some gods research, some Slavic gods research, that was cool. But like everything else was just dry. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I decided to move forward in time. But yeah, this, you know, the 1920s research that I did for the Hunting in Moscow house,

my previous book was just a little darker. It was just very depressing just because they had to do with people that stayed in Russia during Soviet times and dealt with the regime and it was very dark very um you know co it was covid it was pandemic my my grandmother just died you know it was just a very dark research period for me yeah but this was just pure fun like fortune tellers of rudderoo i was just having fun with it researching paris going to paris researching fortune tellers spiritualism yeah it was it was a lot of fun and also researching like, I guess, more alive research, if that makes sense. Like even reading those novels and short stories and biographies of the women that were angry

grays living in Paris. That was very cool because it just, it was so, yeah, it was just very relatable, I think, is the word. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing, and you're kind of touching on it, which it makes a lot of sense that it was like a lot of people were lost or men, like you're saying, or died or like all kinds of things were happening because of the current events where like these people were still dying for a way to connect dying. Yeah. Great word. They were yearning for the ability to like connect with people. They didn't have answers about. And so what I think. thought was kind of interesting, and I think Gothic literature kind of does this in general,

but the book really does also kind of deal with grief and loss and memories. And it kind of ties in so well to someone who's able to speak with the dead. So were you kind of wanting to explore those subjects as well with kind of through the spiritual parts or the seance parts? Yeah, speaking to that, I mean, for sure. I mean, just talking about my grandmother. I mean, it's interesting because I still sometimes, I'm very fanciful when it comes when it comes to nighttime, especially. And when I'm a left alone, like with the kids, my husband leaves for a work trip or whatever, and I'm staying home with the kids. And I just, I'm alive to every sound. And you don't understand. But who I picture seeing is my departed family.

Okay. I don't know why. And I'm scared. Oh, you are scared. I'm really scared. But then I try to tell myself, you know what, I would love to see my grandmother again. And I think if she would come back, I think she would come back to comfort me because that's what she did my whole life. And so I think about that concept a lot of what would these people be like if they came back and talked to us. So I think, like I said, I think, I think, I think. about that a lot and I've kind of always lived with portraits of my family. It's what my, especially dad's family did. I was horrified of his, of his flat in Moscow because my grandmother, my dad's mom died at a like young age. I was just born and she died. And my grandfather just loved her so much and he would put pictures of her and paintings of her and he would speak to her as if she was alive. Wow. Yeah. And this was when I was three, five years old.

Okay. And so I've been living with this for this concept of speaking to the dead for a very long time. And I think that was one of the things that I wanted to explore both with my second book, the Hotti, and this one. but especially this one is what if there's a person like Zina who is able to speak to the dead both for other people and for herself and what would they say and also the other side of it is what about the people that don't respond such as her mom why aren't they responding why i mean are they gone are they at peace or are they trapped are they you know right can they not speak for some

reason. And I mean, I think that's a fascinating concept, too, is in studying spiritualism, especially who comes back and why and who doesn't and why. Yeah. Yeah. There was kind of another thing that like came up for me at least is kind of like fortune telling versus like it also could be so closely related to what we might call intuition. Like if you were looking at it that way. And so it kind of like there's a logic even to it, even though it sounds kind of magical as well. So were you kind of like trying to like show both sides of that with the story too? Like sometimes it's, it's maybe stuff that we just use different words for. Yeah, I mean, I definitely wanted to be more realistic. I'm always in awe of authors that are able to write magical realism.

It's a secret. Because I feel like I can't as much. I mean, I just love practical magic, for example. Right. It's amazing. That whole series is amazing because she does such a good job. The author does such a good job of really getting at the, is it or isn't it, right? Right.

And I feel like the movie definitely just kind of oversteps and makes it more magical. kind of takes on its own way. Yeah, yeah. But the books, especially the first one, when I read it, I was so surprised because I'm like, oh my gosh, this is magical realism at its finest because it's is it or isn't it? And I feel like to me, that's even more powerful. The other example of that is The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. I don't know if you read that one. But no, but I hear people love it. God. That is probably the best piece of like modern Gothic fiction that I've ever read. It's incredible because of that concept. So there's a ghost at this house.

The doctor's the main character. He's kind of getting involved in the family of the house. And there's a ghost or is it or isn't it. Right. You know, all of the evidence points to a ghost. All the spooky happenings in the house points to the ghost. But we don't see it. And so I feel like for me, magical realism, whether it's magic or.

gothic ghosts it's just very powerful because it's it's relatable right it's it's anyone up at night thinking they hear a strange noise what is it that's almost scarier than seeing something right it's the fear related to it and so i think that's why i i really played with that concept i don't know if i succeeded because i like i said i feel like magical realism is so hard to nail down because you're either writing fantasy or you're not. And I think being in that middle is really challenging, but I think it's also so rewarding because you just, it's more, I think to me, more relatable, more creepy, more eerie, just more of everything that's a little more psychological, too. It's right. That's right. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. If you like psychological suspense or

thrillers, like then it kind of feels like that. Exactly. I completely, there is nothing scarier than when, similar to what you're saying, my husband travels for work every now and then. And like, your dogs. Your dogs. I knew it. The dogs, they just don't sleep through the night, especially the first two nights that he's gone.

And it's like, they're reacting to everything. Yes. And so she's like, are you talking about me? And sometimes they just wait. My Bruce will just stand in the bedroom. door barking into the hallway, like just barking like he sees something and I will get out of bed and turn lights on. I'm like, there's nothing there. Leave the lights on. Leave the lights on. He's terrible, but you would almost rather see something because you're like, what is going on? Yeah, no, it's so funny

because I see it with my daughter, with especially my younger daughter now who's like, she'll get up in the middle and she has like this sack on that she wears at night and we have this camera. I'm like, oh my gosh, I hear her, you know, I'll get like a notification from the camera that she's up. I look at the camera and she's just like standing at her crib, like in her crib looking at the door. And I'm just like, oh my God. Yeah. Like what is happening? Yeah. Yeah. So I totally understand. Yeah. It's very tripping. Yeah. It's very scary. Yeah. It's very scared. Well, I obviously loved it. You can tell. I had. all kinds of questions. I think I feel like a lot more people are reading Gothic. It seems to kind of just like everything come in waves. So if you've been loving the Frankenstein, what was the other big one that was Gothic? Well, Sinners was one that had it. Sinners was amazing. I loved it. But if you love Gothic, this is another really, really fun story that you should read is basically what I'm saying.

But I do always ask, and it sounds like you may know, this at the end if there's anything you've read recently that you really loved or because i know that's like a tricky question sometimes you're like what have i read or is there something you like always recommend to people to read yeah so um so saltwater i just finished that and that's a great one if you're into thrillers um it's not um fantasy it's not gothic but it's um but it's just very it's very eerie and it takes a great place in Capri. And so it's very like Italian drenched and very immersive, very immersive and a very dark family mystery at the at the center.

Right now I'm reading Dark Sisters by Christy DeNister. Oh, so good. I'm loving it so far. That prologue is just living in my mind. Yes. So for those that don't know, it's about, I think, three generations of women and they're connected by a curse and so so far loving that and then i just finished the madwife which i absolutely love like that's five-star read from me um incredible again not not gothic but kind of like

kind of the trad wife um the trad wife motherhood uh kind of angle um about a 1950s housewife and mother and something traumatic happens to her that you don't know and she just uh start to lose it. And it just says such a brilliant view of motherhood, how tragedy transforms us, and just about, I think women, you know, women and what we deal with. And it's just a wonderful, powerfully huge statement about societal expectations to unwomen, particularly, then and now, now sadly as well. I know. We're making progress, but then we're making progress, but then. Exactly. I mean, this is this is why I write about women. Yes. It's ongoing.

It's just, I think we need reminders that there were powerful women in history that they existed, that they can yet exist, that we are powerful and that we're strong and that we're stronger together. I think that's what the point of this book is. That's same thing for me with historical fiction. That's, I'm so, I respect so many women who are doing things when it was still harder to do than it is now, essentially. Absolutely. I'm with you on that. Well, as of the day that this is airing, you guys can all go get the book.

So you better go get it. Thank you so much for talking with me about it. Thank you so much. It was so much fun. You had the most amazing questions. Thank you so much. Thank you.