Jess Montgomery takes readers into Appalachian history with her new novel, The Widows. But the characters behind this tale are more than fascinating—to Montgomery, they are healing.

A few months after our youngest child went off to college, I was at loose ends, partly from empty-nest syndrome but also because for months I’d been unmoored from any clear direction as a writer—a situation exacerbated if not triggered by a difficult situation in my family of origin on my mother’s side. With my mother’s passing, the situation was over but not resolved, at least not in my heart and not with a sense of peace.

So I was happy to distract myself by researching places to visit near Ohio University, situated in Athens County in the foothills of Appalachia, for our daughter’s birthday. We sent our children to college without automobiles, and she was, I knew, also at loose ends—in her case, for a chance to get out of town and hike. She was, after all, an Outdoor Recreation and Education major.

I started poking around on the internet with mundane search terms such as “places to visit near Athens, Ohio,” or “hiking in southeastern Ohio.” A tourism page popped up for Vinton County, which abuts Athens County to the southwest. And on that page was a celebration of a woman the county proclaimed as their most famous resident: Maude Collins, the state’s first female sheriff, in 1925. (The next female sheriff in the state, according to the website, was elected in 1976.)

I was captivated by the image of Maude: young, feminine, somber, strong, beautiful. Modestly and properly dressed in a jacket and ruffled blouse and sensible brimmed hat—clothes that don’t fit the clichéd sequined and feathered flapper image of 1920s women.

But there was something more about her expression—sorrow. A call to duty to go on, as if there’s no other choice. Maude’s sheriff husband, Fletcher, with whom she had five children and for whom she worked as jail matron, was killed in the line of duty while arresting a man for speeding. The story goes that after the funeral, Maude was packing up to head home to her parents in West Virginia when the county commissioners came to her door, asked, “Where you goin’, Maude?” and appointed her to fulfill her husband’s post.

In 1926, she was fully elected in her own right—in a landslide victory. She even gained a bit of national fame after solving a murder that was written up in Master Detective magazine.

But I was struck by more than fascination with a young woman in a law enforcement role that even today is unusual. I wondered what Maude might say to me about my own familial losses and sorrow.

I have no way to know, of course.

But inspired by Maude, my imagination offered up Lily Ross, a wholly crafted character in her own right and the protagonist of The Widows, in which her sheriff husband Daniel is murdered—in this case, by an unknown culprit.

I thought maybe, just maybe, writing about a woman working as a sheriff in a time when it was almost unheard of for women to operate outside the bounds of hearth and home, a woman dealing with complex grief and loss, would remoor me to a writing direction. A direction that might lead not only to a good story but also personal peace.

As the story emerged in my imagination, so did another character—Marvena Whitcomb, a longtime friend of Daniel’s, who has lost her common-law husband in a mining accident and who now works as a unionizer. Marvena becomes a surprising ally for Lily, and together the women work to uncover the identity and motivations of Daniel’s murderer.

Shaping both women are forces beyond their control—women’s rights, unionization, prohibition, coal mining. As well, both are formed, in part, by the hills and hollers, customs and attitudes of Appalachia.

I, too, am a child of Appalachia—both sides of my family of origin go as far back as anyone can trace in Eastern Kentucky. Though I grew up in a part of Ohio close to but geographically outside of Appalachia, the dynamics of growing up in an Appalachian family shaped me far more than actual location of birth.

And as I drew deeply from family lore, music, attitudes, recipes, music and language as threads that wove the backdrop of Lily and Marvena’s story, I found myself slowly starting to, if not fully heal, at least reach emotional resolution. More importantly, as Lily and Marvena uncover the truth of Daniel’s death, they find solace in relationships, friendships and community. Ultimately, I did, too.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a review of The Widows.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek was inspired by the true, historical blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse Library Service, which spanned the 1930s and early ’40s during eastern Kentucky’s most violent era.

Years ago, I stumbled across these heroic librarians of the Great Depression and the rare blue-skinned Kentuckians, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I wanted to embrace their strengths and uniqueness in story. There was such rich, magnificent history in the two, and I was surprised that I hadn’t seen them in novels—that neither had been given a large footprint in literary history. I knew it was time for the wider world to experience them fully, to learn about and see the glorious Kentucky female packhorse librarians and the precious blue-skinned mountain folk.

There was a small, isolated clan that suffered from a rare genetic condition called congenital methemoglobinemia. To learn more, I visited with doctors and spoke with a hematologist. I was saddened to find how the Blues were treated—how people shunned and shamed them instead of embracing them for their very uniqueness. It became important for me to humanize these Appalachian folk, to shed light and dispel old stereotypes, to help inform others by bringing these unique people into a novel. I have much empathy for marginalized people, for anyone who has faced or faces prejudices and hardships. It’s easy to feel the Blues’ pain deeply, particularly if you’ve gone through hardships in your own life.

Librarians have always been dear to me. I grew up under the grinding heels of poverty, spending my first decade in a rural Kentucky orphanage, and then on to foster care and beyond, to finding myself homeless at age 14. As a foster child in 1970, I remember going to my first library one lonely summer and checking out a book with the help of a librarian who wisely informed me that I could take home more than one. I was moved by her compassion and wisdom and have not forgotten her to this day. Librarians are lifelines for so many, giving us powerful resources to help us become empowered.

Long ago, I began collecting everything I could on the packhorse librarians and blue-skinned people, poring over archives, old newspapers, pictures, documentaries and more. My research stretched into coal-mining towns and their history, and then into thick-treed forests to explore fire-tower lookouts and interview an old mountaineer who was a former fire-tower watcher. The mountain man had many intriguing stories about living in a fire tower and generously shared them over a modest Christmas meal. Other research included more hours studying Roosevelt’s New Deal and WPA programs. And last, there was the fun and interesting research on mules. I had every intention of riding one until I fell off the mountain.

Sadly, there isn’t a cool or exciting wolf or bear-that-chased-me story to be had here. Instead, this story involves me awkwardly toting a tall stack of heavy Pyrex casserole dishes down dangerous concrete steps for an elderly mountain lady. After an embarrassingly painful fall, my arm suffered seven breaks, but the Pyrex survived with nary a scratch.

In 2016, I had the honor of meeting the talented Georgia playwright and writer Amina S. McIntyre, who was staying nearby at a Kentucky nature conservancy for an artist-in-residency program that I’d supported. Since Amina was new to the area and alone on the 300-acre preserve, I wanted to welcome her and drop off books and pie. Important and conducive to good writing and creating, so I thought! Amina kindly showed me around the pastoral grounds and inside the old antebellum farmhouse that she occupied. She paused to point out an antique courting candle, which ended up becoming an important theme in my novel and inspired the first pages of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

The legend behind the candle says it was used by patriarchs to set a time limit for the suitor who came courting his daughter. I was utterly captivated by the concept—although the unique spiral design of the 100-year-old wrought iron courting candle was likely created as a mere practicality to keep the melting candle in place and from slipping. More folklore than fact. Still, I found the candle a commanding and curious induction of courtship. And I couldn’t stop imagining how the candle could have been the source of someone’s lifelong misery or joy and how it had been passed on to different generations. How wonderful the conversations must have been that took place around and over it.

That visit with Amina led me to look for a courting candle. Eventually I found one: a small curiosity to be admired, more decor than practical. But when my novel went on submission to publishers and I was given the wonderful opportunity to talk to several editors, that changed. As I picked up the phone to chat, I immediately lit the old courter, hoping for the perfect “intended” for my novel. It worked.

Additionally, I spent thousands of hours exploring everything from fauna to flora to folklore to food and longtime traditions indigenous to Appalachia. I was fortunate to have a shoebox apartment atop a mountain in Appalachia and to be able to live in that landscape and spend time with native Appalachians who taught me the lyrics and language of their people and ancestors.

Kentucky has always inspired and influenced my books, as it is both a beautiful and brutal place full of fascinating history, varied landscapes, complex people and culture, and I’m fortunate to live in a region that my heart can draw on.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

Natasha Lester’s The Paris Orphan follows model-turned-journalist Jessica May as she struggles with 1940s sexism while covering World War II and raising a young orphan named Victorine. To create her latest historical heroine, Lester drew on the real lives of trailblazers Lee Miller and Martha Gelhorn.

I first came across Lee Miller when I was researching my previous book, The Paris Seamstress. I was immediately fascinated by her story and wanted to channel that fascination into a book. The Paris Orphan was initially inspired by Lee Miler, but the more I researched, the more I discovered other female war correspondents whose stories needed to be told.

Lee Miller was a famous model throughout the 1920s. Her face graced the covers of magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Then her image was used without her knowledge in an advertisement for Kotex sanitary products, and her modeling career came to an abrupt halt. Lee then went to Paris, met photographer Man Ray and learned the artistry of being behind the camera. With the advent of WWII, she became accredited as Vogue’s photojournalist, reporting from Europe.

Lee’s life was equal parts inspiring and heartbreaking. She was an artist and a documenter of the horrors of war, a beautiful woman with the strength to do a difficult job and most certainly a woman who never deserved to be forgotten.

The Hotel Scribe in Paris, which served as the U.S. Army’s press headquarters in WWII.

That’s why, in The Paris Orphan, she became the inspiration for the character of Jessica May. Like Lee, Jess is a photojournalist for Vogue during WWII, and her closest friend is another inspiring woman from the real world, Martha Gellhorn.

Gellhorn fought hard against the many ridiculous rules that were in place to “protect” female war correspondents, rules that actually stopped them from doing their job. For example, the female correspondents were not allowed to go across the English Channel to mainland Europe to report on D-Day and the invasion. When Collier’s, the news magazine Gellhorn worked for, heard about this, they decided to get someone else to do her job. They chose Ernest Hemingway—Gellhorn’s husband. And they didn’t even have the guts to tell her; they asked Hemingway to break the news to Gellhorn instead.

That betrayal may have felled a lesser woman. But Gellhorn wasn’t a lesser woman. She stowed away in the bathroom of a hospital ship going to Normandy and became the first woman correspondent to land on French soil post-invasion. She got her story. Hemingway didn’t. He was stuck in a boat out on the water.

But when Gellhorn returned to London, she was locked up in a nurses’ training camp. Her passport and accreditation papers were taken from her because she’d broken the terms of her accreditation. None of the male reporters were locked up for doing exactly the same thing.

Gellhorn was amazingly resilient. She escaped from the training camp and, without a passport or papers, hitched a ride on a ship going to Italy. There she spent a few months reporting from the Italian front until she was finally allowed back into the main theater of war.

This is just one example of the discrimination female correspondents faced in Europe during WWII. The Paris Orphan weaves the shocking story of this sexism into its pages, as well as the story of how incredible these women were, how hard they fought and why they were also heroes.

Author photo by Stef King Photography.