Given the endless parade of biographies of Founding Fathers and Tudor monarchs, one might be forgiven for wondering whether there are any fresh candidates for a lengthy life study left. Canadian writer Rosemary Sullivan (Villa Air-Bel) proves the answer is yes with Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva, the masterfully told and meticulously researched story of a truly remarkable life.

Born in 1926 and raised in luxury in Moscow, the only daughter of Russia’s all-powerful leader Joseph Stalin, Svetlana Iosifovna Stalina (who later took her mother’s name of Alliluyeva) was beautiful, intelligent and privileged. But not even Stalin’s favorite child was exempt from the terror that his reign ushered in. Before her father’s death in 1953, Alliluyeva would suffer the loss of her mother, two brothers, numerous aunts and uncles and even her first love to death or deportation. Her father’s role in their fates was something she spent her entire life struggling to reconcile.

If that were all that ever happened to Alliluyeva, her story would still be worth reading. But life had much more in store for this proud, passionate and impulsive woman. After Stalin’s death, she was alternately lauded, spied on and reviled, depending on the prevailing politics of the day. She married three times and bore three children, two of whom she left behind in the Soviet Union after she took the remarkable step of defecting during the height of the Cold War, at the age of 41. It was a desperate attempt to escape her father’s shadow, but Alliluyeva was not able to put the past completely behind her—in fact, she shaped her writing career around it, beginning with a best-selling memoir that made her a millionaire. By the time of her death in 2011, Alliluyeva was living in near poverty in Wisconsin—an anything but predictable end for a Kremlin princess.

Sullivan weaves Svetlana’s fascinating story with cinematic grace, bringing settings as diverse as Moscow, India, England and the United States to life with equal ease. She also sustains a surprising amount of suspense—Alliluyeva’s defection in 1967 in particular has the tension of a spy thriller or an episode of “The Americans.” Combining archival research with journal excerpts and testimony from friends and family, most notably Alliluyeva’s youngest daughter, Olga, Stalin’s Daughter is an intimate portrait of a complicated woman who was a symbol to many but truly known by only a few.

BookPage Nonfiction Top Pick, May 2015

Nowadays, the title of a nonfiction book is almost invariably followed by a phrase hyping the contents, including words like incredible, survival or secret. No such subtitle is needed for two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough’s latest book, The Wright Brothers, even though it contains all three elements.

Of course, McCullough’s name alone virtually guarantees bestseller status. Author of Mornings on Horseback and The Path Between the Seas and acclaimed biographer of Harry Truman and John Adams, he has earned his reputation as one of the best (and most-read) historians of our time. By turning his attention to the two shy brothers from Dayton, Ohio, who pioneered the age of flight, he guarantees that millions will learn a story that is, well, incredible.

“Shy” doesn’t quite do justice to the brothers (an armchair psychiatrist would likely conclude that one or both had Asperger’s syndrome), but McCullough does his best to bring out the personalities of two men virtually indistinguishable in the public eye. (If you don’t know which brother was which, join the crowd.) For McCullough, it’s not all propellers, wind tunnels and sand dunes: By emphasizing the Wright family dynamics, with a particular focus on their father, Bishop Milton Wright, and ever-supportive sister, Katharine Wright, he humanizes their story and makes it more relatable.

As for the technical side, readers won’t be disappointed. McCullough traces the development of powered, piloted flight from the brothers’ earliest interest in a crude flying toy to hard-won success at Kitty Hawk. Amazingly, in hindsight, it was another five years after the historic Dec. 17, 1903, flights before the brothers achieved worldwide acclaim. McCullough is at his best recounting this period, when fish-out-of-water Wilbur travels to France to disprove the doubters and Orville almost loses his life in a crash near Washington, D.C.

The Wrights didn’t totally shun fame, but they didn’t chase it either. The story of the brothers’ single-minded quest to master the skies is a compelling one, made even more compelling by McCullough’s sure-handed storytelling skills. He knows the prose doesn’t need to soar—the brothers and their accomplishments provide all the soaring that’s necessary.

This article was originally published in the May 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Both born in 1884, Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth could have been classmates in school. It’s easy to imagine Eleanor sitting up front (or even helping teach the class) and Alice occupying a back-row spot, launching spitballs and making wisecracks.

As Hissing Cousins makes clear, the two women from one of America’s foremost families could not have been more different. And that makes for some highly entertaining reading, especially if you like your history sweetened with delicious anecdotes and tasty bon mots.

Eleanor was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Alice was Theodore’s daughter from his first marriage, fated never to know her mother (who died the day after Alice was born). The first cousins may have been from the same family tree, but complicated circumstances—some political, some personal—pulled them apart as they matured into adulthood. At that point the stage was set, with shy social reformer Eleanor on the side of the Democratic party and attention-loving gadfly Alice casting her lot with the Republicans.

Authors Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer have a can’t-miss subject on their hands, and they bring the reader along for an exhilarating ride. Any history lessons, including a brief account of the Teapot Dome scandal, are a bonus, and there’s enough philandering to make the residents of Peyton Place blush.

For better or worse, most of the hissing in Hissing Cousins is done from afar. Face to face, on numerous social occasions, the cousins are all smiles. But as the authors know, where’s the fun—and the book—in that?

This article was originally published in the April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

To imagine what life was like growing up in a French village in the early 15th century, don’t think of A Year in Provence. Think of modern-day Syria.

It was the France of the Hundred Years War with England, a land and a people ravaged by unchecked violence. Catholic belief permeated everyday life, and the French were taught that their travails were a punishment from God. Out of this mélange of catastrophe and faith came the village teenager we know as St. Joan of Arc, to this day her country’s icon.

Hundreds of books have been written about her, but the story remains astounding enough for new interpretations. Kathryn Harrison, the well-known author of novels, memoirs and a previous biography of a saint, has now taken up the challenge with the deeply researched and thoughtful Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured.

Harrison expertly cross-cuts Joan’s life (1412-1431) in its historical context with the remarkable parallels between her story and the life of Jesus and with consideration of the books, plays, movies and paintings she has inspired. Each age invents its own Joan.

But even stripped of fable, Joan was a phenomenon: a peasant girl who pronounced herself the messenger of God, donned men’s clothes and armor, inspired the French king and army to victory, fought beside them and stood up boldly to the quisling court that condemned her to burn. In Harrison’s hands, Joan’s confidence and intelligence come alive.

Whatever we make of Joan’s “Voices”—angels, hallucinations or mental illness—she was utterly convinced of their reality and purity. The French churchmen allied with England who killed her believed the voices were demons, but Harrison shows that Joan’s worst crime in their eyes was her revolutionary audacity in dressing and behaving like a man. Of course, the ultimate victory was hers.

This article was originally published in the November 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Nonfiction Top Pick, November 2014

From “Game of Thrones” to The Pillars of the Earth, popular culture offers up medieval stories where royals grab for power, where crucial alliances are built between church and state, where important people suddenly fall over dead after a sumptuous meal, poisoned by a hidden rival. But this world did, in fact, exist, and the subject of Kirstin Downey’s fascinating new biography, Isabella: The Warrior Queen, maneuvered through it with unlikely and thrilling success.

Most have heard of Isabella and Ferdinand, the monarchs who commissioned Columbus’ famous voyage, but what is less widely known is that Isabella ran the kingdom while Ferdinand merely signed the papers. Born in 1451, she left her fingerprints all over Spain by initiating the Inquisition, waging war against foes, pursuing a trans-Atlantic empire and brilliantly matchmaking her five children.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of an acclaimed biography of Frances Perkins, Downey is a brilliant storyteller. Despite the difficulties posed by a limited and inevitably incomplete archive, she writes with eloquence and intensity about Isabella’s life. And readers will quickly see why she chose to write about this medieval queen, whose life often seems pulled from the pages of a novel. Take, for example, Isabella’s engagement to a man she passionately did not want to marry. She prayed to God to smite either the man or her, and the suitor died on the road of a sudden illness.

Because she wanted her daughters to be powerful leaders, Isabella made sure that their education (unlike her own) included instruction in Latin. And when she encountered the articulate dreamer Christopher Columbus, she chose to financially support his expeditions against the recommendations of her advisors. Downey’s Isabella is a generous, insightful and extremely ambitious leader who was determined to expand her kingdom against daunting odds—and who helped shape the world we inhabit today.

RELATED CONTENT: Read our Q&A with Downey about Isabella. 

This article was originally published in the November 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Cleopatra, Nefertiti: These are the names that come to mind when thinking of the legendary female rulers of ancient Egypt. In her highly engrossing The Woman Who Would Be King, Egyptian scholar Kara Cooney shines a spotlight on Hatshepsut, Egypt’s largely overlooked, longest-ruling female pharaoh, who led her country through a period marked by peace, prosperity and architectural achievement.

Daughter of King Thutmose I, Hatshepsut was highly educated, trained in her duties from a very early age. At the death of her father, when she was 12 or 13, Hatshepsut married Thutmose II (her own brother—inter-family royal marriages were de rigueur in Egypt 3,500 years ago). Three years later, Thutmose II was dead. Hatshepsut had only one surviving child with him, a daughter, and so the crown was passed along to Thutmose III, whose mother was a lesser-born wife of Thutmose II. Because Thutmose III was only 3 years old at the time, it was clear a regent would need to rule in his stead. Hatshepsut easily stepped into the role.

It was common for mothers of young kings to rule for their sons until they came of age, so Hatshepsut becoming the regent for her stepson/nephew was nothing out of the ordinary. She was an effective, fair and respected ruler who surrounded herself with the right people. What was out of the ordinary, however, came around six to eight years later, when she announced that Amen-Re (king of the gods) had declared her to be co-king (there was no Egyptian word for “queen”). And so she shrewdly ruled Egypt alongside Thutmose III until her death, likely in her late 30s.

Though the exact reason is unknown, some 20 years after her death, Thutmose III ordered the removal of Hatshepsut’s name and likeness from all Egyptian buildings and monuments—which likely explains her obscurity in part. Though Egyptologists have managed to uncover and piece together some details of her rise to power and rule, hard facts are few and far between, something Cooney acknowledges right off the bat. While much of The Woman Who Would Be Queen is conjecture, it is informed-by-expertise, compellingly written conjecture that will draw curious readers in with its vivid depiction of life in Ancient Egypt and a truly remarkable woman.

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is such an iconic military figure that he is legendary to Civil War scholars and schoolchildren alike. So it’s hard to imagine an author breaking new ground with another Jackson biography. But S.C. Gwynne does just that in Rebel Yell, which deserves comparisons to Shelby Foote’s three-volume The Civil War for its depth of knowledge and graceful narrative. Gwynne, a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Empire of the Summer Moon, casts Jackson as a human being, not as a bronze figure towering over a battlefield. Readers will come away from Rebel Yell with an understanding of the man that goes beyond his military exploits.

Gwynne is obligated to cover familiar territory, as when Thomas Jackson earned his nickname by standing his ground against superior Union forces at the First Battle of Manassas. A fellow Confederate general shouted, “Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall,” and the rest, as they say, is history.

Jackson’s military prowess is impressive, but it is glimpses of Stonewall off the battlefield that are more fascinating. We learn that Jackson was a complex character with any number of quirks and tics. He was deeply religious and placed his fate in the hands of God. Thus, while he lived by the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” once the South declared war, he pledged his loyalty and felt that any death he caused was God’s will. Formerly a professor at the Virginia Military Institute, Jackson was introverted and soft-spoken, yet in the heat of battle, his eyes became fiery and his demeanor decisive as he barked out orders. He was consumed by his health, and a bad stomach propelled him to a diet of stale bread and buttermilk. Despite these peculiarities, Jackson rose to become one of the South’s fiercest and most beloved generals, so relied upon that his early death left Confederates wondering whether the war’s outcome might have been different if he had survived.

Gwynne’s masterful storytelling makes Rebel Yell an absorbing choice for general readers and Civil War buffs alike.

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Real life spy Kim Philby had a level of charm that fictional spy James Bond could only aspire to. To meet Philby, it seemed, was to fall under his convivial sway. Thus, when it was disclosed in 1963 that this very proper, well-placed and Cambridge-educated Englishman had been spying for the Soviet Union since 1934, two people were particularly shaken by the revelation: Nicholas Elliott, his longtime drinking buddy and colleague at MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, and James Angleton, the zealous spymaster at America’s Central Intelligence Agency. Both men had regarded Philby as the supreme exemplar of their shadowy trade. Of course, he was.

The focus of A Spy Among Friends is the fragility of trust in the spy business. Apart from the pain of losing his best friend when Philby was outed and subsequently fled to Russia, Elliott also suffered the embarrassment of having brought Philby back into MI6 after he had been nearly exposed as a spy a few years earlier. Angleton never recovered from Philby’s betrayal, which made him paranoid and suspicious of everyone he worked with.

Both Elliott and Angleton tried to rewrite history to show that Philby hadn’t fooled them as completely as the records show he did. From Philby’s perspective, though, his story was of unwavering allegiance to the noble cause of worldwide communism, a goal that trumped nationalism and friendship. That dozens, maybe hundreds, of undercover agents were killed as a direct result of his dissembling never appeared to bother him.

British author and historian Ben Macintyre (Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat) does a masterful job of bringing these intriguing personalities to life and of recreating the World War II and Cold War milieus that forged their passions and alliances.

Spy novelist John le Carré, who served under Elliott in MI6, provides a poignant afterword concerning his former superior’s attempts to purge himself of Philby’s ghost.

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Robert L. O’Connell’s Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman includes a photograph of the celebrated Civil War general with his staff. While the other men strike classic poses and gaze into the middle distance, Sherman sits slightly slumped, legs crossed, jacket unbuttoned, glittering eyes focused directly on the camera. It fits with the popular notion of Sherman, the man who invented “modern war” and whose soldiers burned a path of destruction through the American South.

O’Connell’s biography envisions Sherman not as one man, but three, shaped by his own personality and his circumstances: “the strategic man, the general, the human being.” He tackles each persona sequentially, emerging at the end with a fully realized portrait of a complicated individual.

O’Connell displays warmth and occasional humor as he considers Sherman’s more memorable traits. An acclaimed talker, Sherman was “a veritable volcano of verbiage,” he writes. O’Connell doesn’t overlook Sherman’s darker characteristics, especially his treatment of Indians and his overwhelming belief in Manifest Destiny, no matter who or what was in the way. Sherman was not cruel, the author argues, but a man committed to duty and accomplishing his goals.

O’Connell devotes a final section to Sherman’s relationship with his family, particularly his tempestuous marriage to his foster sister, Ellen. Despite his adultery and her manipulations, they were each other’s best friends and allies—a remarkable relationship in a truly remarkable life.

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.