The Jane Healey Happy Hour

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey welcomes bestselling author Jennifer Ryan back to discuss The Queen’s Coronation , a historical novel inspired by her mother’s memories of Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation. Ryan explains how she tells the story through three women working around the palace—including an assistant dresser, a laundry maid, and an ambitious American journa...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with debut novelist Kevin C. Morris about Untamed Coast , an atmospheric mystery inspired by a real 1930s radio outpost he discovered while boating along the remote coast of Southeast Alaska. Morris shares the remarkable story behind Radioville, where a lone radio operator once carried messages by rowboat between isolated gold mines...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey welcomes author Kitty Zeldis to discuss her historical novel One of Them , a story of friendship, identity, and belonging at Vassar College in the years following World War II. Kitty shares how Vassar's history of antisemitism inspired her to explore two Jewish women who make very different choices about revealing their identities, an...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with award-winning author Laura Jensen Walker about The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch , the story of a solitary 70-year-old book lover who sets out for the legendary Welsh book town of Hay-on-Wye. Walker shares how discovering she was neurodivergent at 67 inspired Primrose and her journey, and why the character’s unexpected bond...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with bestselling author Rachel Beanland about The Half Life , set on the Mediterranean island of La Maddalena in the 1970s, when an American naval presence brought Navy families into a close and sometimes contentious relationship with the local community. Beanland shares her personal connection to the island, where she lived as a chi...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with USA Today bestselling author Meg Shaffer about The Book Witch , a love letter to reading built around witches who can step inside books, repair damaged stories, and track down fictional characters who escape their pages. Shaffer shares how Alice in Wonderland , Nancy Drew, Pride and Prejudice , and other classics found their way...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with author Lori Gold about Kiss, Marry, Kill , a book club novel about three best friends who wake up in an alternate universe where the choices they made during a party game have become reality. Gold discusses how the pandemic helped shape the novel’s questions about choice, regret, and whether the grass really is greener, along wi...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lim about Fishbone Cinderella , her adult debut inspired by her grandmother’s experiences in wartime China and postwar Hong Kong. Lim shares how a Chinese Cinderella tale—with magical fish bones instead of a fairy godmother—helped shape this mother-daughter story and its elements of...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with bestselling historical fiction author Louise Fein about The Book of Forbidden Words , a dual-timeline novel spanning the 1500s and 1950s. Fein shares the history behind real-life Parisian printer Charlotte Goulard, the inspiration she found in the still-undeciphered Voynich manuscript, and the extensive research required to brin...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey talks with #1 New York Times bestselling author Lyla Sage about Free Falling , the second novel in her Sweetwater Peak duology. Sage shares how her love of rural communities, antiques, Western ghost-town lore, and haunted-house stories shaped the atmospheric town of Sweetwater Peak and the romance between Clark and Laith. She also talks ab...

Jane Healey talks with Vanessa Riley about Fire, Sword and Sea , her historical novel inspired by Jacquotte Delahaye, a Black woman who rose from a tavern keeper’s daughter to become a pirate captain in the 1600s Caribbean. Riley shares how a visit to Port Royal sparked the novel and why reconstructing Jacquotte’s life required extensive research and careful triangulation from the records of bette...

Jane Healey welcomes author Priya Parmar to The Jane Healey Happy Hour to discuss The Original , her new novel inspired by Katharine Hepburn’s remarkable life and career. Priya shares how a simple conversation with her mother led to months of research, including reading dozens of books, visiting Hepburn’s homes, and working with primary source materials to better understand the woman behind the pu...

Jane Healey welcomes bestselling author Emily Franklin to discuss Love and Other Monsters , a novel that reimagines the origins of Frankenstein through the eyes of Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley's often-overlooked stepsister. Listen as Emily shares the years of research behind the book, from uncovering Claire's letters and journals to exploring the remarkable summer of 1816 when literary...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, bestselling author Jane Healey sits down with bestselling author Kerri Maher to discuss Summer of Love, a family secrets novel that moves between 1967 San Francisco and 2015 Napa Valley. Kerri shares how Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way unexpectedly unlocked the idea for the novel, along with the personal connection she has to California and...

Bestselling author Jane Healey welcomes author, former U.S. Congressman, and bookstore owner Steve Israel to discuss his latest historical thriller, The Einstein Conspiracy . Inspired by the Long Island cottage where Albert Einstein wrote his pivotal 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning of Nazi atomic ambitions, Israel shares the remarkable true history behind the novel, his exte...

Author John Glynn joins Jane Healey to discuss his debut novel, The Lost Book of Lancelot , a queer retelling of Arthurian legend that reimagines the story of Sir Lancelot through a fresh and deeply researched lens. John shares how discovering the little-known relationship between Lancelot and the knight Galehaut inspired the novel, and discusses the challenges of navigating centuries of Arthurian...

Join bestselling author Jane Healey on The Jane Healey Happy Hour as she talks with U.S. Air Force veteran John Edward Collins about his debut novel, The Interdictionist , a Cold War military thriller inspired by his own experiences as an NSA cryptologist in West Germany. Collins shares the remarkable story behind the book, including how the NSA required him to submit both his memoir and novel for...

Jane Healey welcomes debut novelist Laura Vogt to discuss In The Great Quiet , a historical novel inspired by the life of Vogt’s great-great-grandmother, who joined the 1893 Cherokee Outlet land run in Oklahoma Territory. Laura shares how family stories, extensive research into women homesteaders, and overlooked corners of American history shaped the novel, along with the challenge of writing fict...

New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center joins Jane Healey to discuss her new romantic comedy, The Shippers , a childhood friends-to-lovers story set aboard a wedding cruise. Katherine shares how her own first kiss on a cruise inspired the novel, why she believes love stories deserve to be taken seriously, and how humor, hope, and emotional connection shape her writing. The conversation...

Bestselling historical fiction author Janis Robinson Daley joins Jane Healey to discuss her latest novel, Under Two Flags , inspired by a little-known 1918 memoir ghostwritten by Daley’s grandfather. The novel follows Josephine, a young American Jewish opera student who travels to Berlin during World War I to pursue her musical dreams amid growing political tension and hardship. Janice shares the...

Jane Healey welcomes debut author Kayla Hardy to The Jane Healey Happy Hour to discuss The Quarter Queen , a historical fantasy set in 1840s New Orleans. Drawing on her background in Black folklore and Louisiana Creole history, Hardy explores the life and legend of Marie Laveau through a layered mother-daughter story that blends magic with real historical tensions. The conversation highlights how...

Jane Healey welcomes back New York Times bestselling author Allison Pataki to discuss her new novel It Girl , inspired by the real-life story of Evelyn Nesbitt. From her rise out of poverty to becoming one of America’s first celebrities, Nesbitt’s life unfolds against the backdrop of the Gilded Age and the birth of modern fame. Pataki shares how she blended history with fiction to reclaim Evelyn’s...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, Jane Healey speaks with New York Times bestselling author Sadeqa Johnson about her new novel Keeper of Lost Children . Johnson shares the little-known history that inspired the book, including the real story of journalist and adoption advocate Mabel Grammer, who helped place more than 500 mixed-race “brown babies” born in post–World War II Germany int...

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, host and bestselling author Jane Healey speaks with novelist Lisa Patton about her new book Kissing the Sky , a story set against the backdrop of the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Patton shares how watching the festival’s 50th anniversary coverage sparked the idea for the novel and how extensive research—including conversations with Woodstock organiz...

New York Times bestselling author Jenna Blum joins Jane Healey to celebrate the fifth anniversary—and rebrand—of the podcast and to discuss her sharp, darkly funny romantic thriller, Murder Your Darlings . The novel follows mid-career historical fiction writer Sam Verner as she embarks on a whirlwind romance with a charismatic, bestselling novelist—only to find herself entangled in a web of obsess...