Ayelet Waldman’s latest novel is unlike anything else out there right now. A Perfect Hand is set in Victorian England and it’s a marriage plot with a twist. Alice Lockey, a lady’s maid, has fallen for Charlie Wells, a lord’s valet. The only way these two servants can be together is if Alice’s Lady Jemima falls for Charlie’s Lord Wynstowe. Which would be straightforward enough, except the lord and the lady despise each other.

The novel has been described as Jane Austen meets Nora Ephron, and that feels exactly right. It’s funny, original, and the voice is captivating from the very first page. Amidst the crinolines, fancy French hairstyles, chamber pots, and stolen kisses, Waldman weaves in some modern-day thinking and feminist ideology that gives the whole thing a sharp, contemporary edge.

In this episode of Elena Meets the Author, Ayelet and I get into how the idea came from her daughter’s advice after years of abandoned drafts, the captivating direct-to-reader Victorian lady-novelist narrator voice she developed, and the obsessive research that went into getting the period right, from the reality of servant life to toxic Victorian cosmetics to hiring a Victorian scholar and British graduate students to catch every anachronism. We also talk about the title’s three meanings, the suffrage era threads woven through the story, and what drew her to escapism with a feminist conscience.

Behind the Stories on Substack is where the conversation goes deeper. Subscribers get writing craft insights from each episode, early access to upcoming guests, and the chance to help shape the show. If you want more than the podcast, you can find it at elenabowes.substack.com.

00:00 Elena meets Ayelet

00:02 Welcome to the Podcast

00:17 Meet Ayelet and the Novel

01:21 Reading a Funny Excerpt

03:39 Finding the Narrator Voice

04:55 Daughter Inspired the Premise

06:19 Twists and Writing Timeline

08:24 Microdosing and Genre Swerves

10:42 Chasing Victorian Language

11:36 Why Shift to Suffrage Era

15:08 Servant Life Research Details

17:57 Bustles and Modern Beauty

19:37 Plastic Surgery and Hollywood

23:13 Meet the Main Characters

28:59 Meet Nigel Winstow

29:28 Calipers and Vanity Science

35:09 Experts Catch Anachronisms

37:14 Audiobook Accent Choices

38:01 Meaning of Perfect Hand

40:03 Stealing Victorian Voices

43:15 Escapism and Suffrage Echoes

47:13 Swiss Army Knife Career

49:08 Next Projects and WWI

51:25 Farewell and Wrap Up

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I loved my chat with author Fiona Davis about her bestselling novel, The Stolen Queen. This is Fiona’s 8^th novel. She didn’t start writing novels until she was 45 and her first national bestseller, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, came out eight years later  when Fiona was 53.  Each of her books is set in a New York City landmark from Radio City Music Hall to The Chelsea Hotel to the New York Public Library. Below is just an edited snippet from our conversation. You can listen to the full episode here on Elena Meets the Author or wherever you listen to podcasts.

 Elena: And for The Stolen Queen, what sparked that story?

But then 10 years later a scholar found that the destruction had to have happened at least 24 years after her death which is a long time to hold a grudge. And they realized, no, it was about the line of succession. The stepson wanted his son to rule and didn’t want the idea of a female pharaoh out in the zeitgeist. So that’s why he did it. Her journey as a woman pharaoh has been fraught in a way that male pharaohs rarely are.

Not only did this book make me want to explore far-flung locales, but it also made me want to consider exploring what’s closer to home, namely The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fiona’s web site has a scavenger hunt page where several objects mentioned in The Stolen Queen can be found at the Met. It’s quite a fun post-read activity.

My favorite object on the Met scavenger hunt was the Fragment of a Queen’s Face which in the novel is called the Cerulean Queen, linked to a fictional pharaoh Hathorkare who is based on the real life pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Second favorite was the broad collar:

What do you hope readers take away from your book?

If you like going to museums, or even if you don’t like going to museums, the key is to go and look at a museum, like the Met, not as a collection of objects, but as a collection of stories. Get a guide, join a tour, let the experts tell you about these objects. It gives you a much better sense of time, place, where we are now versus what things were like then.

The post The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis is an Adventure in Time and Place without the Jetlag appeared first on Elena Bowes.

I am preparing myself. It’s that time of year where we’re all supposed to be jolly and excited for the holidays, where we have to get along even if we’re quietly seething.  Please let’s not get an encore of the fist fight year. I hate to be Bah Humbug, but I wish we could just zoom past them, or at least limit the celebrations to just two tense meals and one festive movie- even that can be contentious – why does one family member get veto rights on both Love Actually and The Holiday?

I’m very polite in my everyday life. I can often be found expressing my gratitude to Chat GPT. I apologize when I’m wrong – I’m sorry my grocery cart knocked you over. Please comes naturally to me, too – But since you’re on the floor, could you please hand me that jar of peanut butter? I don’t know why they put them so low.

But being cheery for several days in a row is depressing.

More broadly, I like to think I’m thankful for my family. Like, I’m thankful my ex-husband isn’t at the Thanksgiving table anymore. There’s a lot of divorce in our family, so holidays are a good time to be grateful for divorce. But compromising on who gets to see which kids and grandkids does get in the way of those gratitude-vibes.

Luckily, I’m very happily married round two. But I am not thankful for how long he can eat Thanksgiving leftovers. By day three I can’t look at another rubbery sweet potato, limp green bean, smooshed brussels sprout or leathery piece of turkey without gagging. There’s a reason we only eat turkey once a year. My husband makes a full plate for lunch every day and eats with gusto. Opposites attract? Not in this case.

I was listening to the news, and a congressman was raising awareness for starving Americans by walking 40 miles. My first thought, and I’m ashamed to admit it, was that’s a lot of steps. Way more than 10,000. And while I feel horribly for those starving people, it didn’t actually make me feel gratitude…More like wishful – I wish I could give them our Thanksgiving leftovers. That would have made me feel grateful on so many levels.

It’s the excess I hate about the holidays. How many presents do I need to buy? How much food do I need to cook (ok order)? How many X-mas cards do I need to send before I can relax, pour a glass of wine, put my feet up and relish the days before NY’s Eve fireworks keep me up?

I used to tell my sister, expect nothing on your birthday and then you won’t be disappointed. She laughed and thought I was being a ridiculous downer. But then she had an underwhelming birthday. Guess who was disappointed?

I’m in my friend Marc’s camp when it comes to holidays. Celebrate that holiday and then move on to normal life as quickly as possible. My husband’s family likes to celebrate any holiday for about five days longer than necessary. That would be six days. They’re a joyous bunch. They start talking about the next holiday as soon as the last one ended.  They actually like each other. Can you imagine?

My kids still haven’t forgiven me for booking flights on December 25^th throughout their childhood. “It’s great! The planes are empty,” I’d tell them.

Christmas is over-rated. Now December 26^th, that’s a great day. But please, let’s keep that on the down low.

November, 2025

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It’s a slim novel of 199 pages, a comic tragedy that reminded me a little of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn.  Both stories involve a cheating husband, a heartbroken wife, but the protagonists are very different. Nora’s protagonist is angry and funny and finds consolation in food and recipes. Katie’s protagonist is watchful, less angry, funny, and finds consolation in stories. The book title Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar makes you think of an old joke. Only when the protagonist walks into a bar, or in this case an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet restaurant with her husband, he tells her he’s having an affair with a white woman named Maggie. Soon after the protagonist discovers she has breast cancer and names the tumor Maggie.

Now divorce, cancer, not such cheery topics, but in Katie’s hands, I kept laughing, not loud, raucous laughter, but more chuckling about the narrator’s relatable observations. She hates the tiny triangular paper cups in the doctor’s waiting room that never hold enough water and the outdated cheesy magazines. She never sees issues of the Atlantic or the New Yorker. Maybe, she muses, because people who read those magazines are too smart to get cancer. She writes ‘The Guide to My Husband: A User’s Manual” and ponders whether she should give it to Maggie, the mistress, not the tumor.

The post Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar- This Slender Novel Resonated Big-time appeared first on Elena Bowes.

I am not an adventurous person. I’m curious about the world, but staying alive is very important to me. Taking the subway in Manhattan can be all the thrill seeking I need.

When I met my second husband we were both already in our fifties. When he told me about some of his favorite trips – stalking Grizzly’s in Canada; sailing from Seattle to San Francisco with 25’ waves; and canoeing alongside crocodiles in the Zambezi River, it occurred to me that those three trips would tie for my perfect idea of hell.

About 15 years ago, my friend Melanie went on a safari with her family. She showed me the videos. There were a lot of people screaming and jeeps fleeing stalking animals. Everyone survived. But I decided after seeing that family video that being on a virtual safari was good enough for me. Not a huge loss as safaris have never been on my bucket list.

Until I met my husband. For some reason he was determined to feed me to the lions, I mean, go on safari. I told him the wildlife near our Connecticut home was all the safari I needed. Then we were invited to a close friend’s son’s wedding in Kenya and my husband, like Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, seized his moment.

“You can’t go to Kenya without going on a safari!”

My friend George once told me that his father died of encephalitis on safari. He was bitten by a Tsetse fly. He was 54.

“Which country?” I had asked.

“Kenya.”

My husband should have been a travel agent in his former life. He loves to plan, sending me multiple calendar invites, way too many for any human to read. I accept them without reading. It’s quicker.  Ditto emails. I’m a professional skimmer.  One day as I was skimming, I spotted the word “hippos” (plural) and the phrase “camping on the riverbank”.

I remember a zookeeper on a zoo tour once calling hippos the cute bad boys of the animal kingdom. Don’t let their come hither looks deceive you. One wrong move and they will take an arm or a leg. That email, I opened. My husband was recommending we stay in a camp on the riverbank to watch the hippos up close.

“It’s very secluded,” he gushed.  “We will have a lot of privacy and a great view of the hippos.”

My reply was concise. “Not happening.”

For some reason I continued to trust my husband after that. But a few weeks before we were due to fly to Nairobi, my son texted late one night:

Are you staying in a tented safari or will there be walls?

“Great question. Walls.” I nudged the man falling asleep in bed next to me, “Our camp has walls, right?” I asked.

“No, tented. It’s in the emails, Elena.” He mumbled before falling asleep.

I felt my stomach tense up. “Tented!” I carefully texted my son.

His reply? “My friends did that. The lions roared all night. They didn’t get any sleep.”

It occurred to me to be angry but in truth, I was relieved. I had the information. Now we just had to book the nearest hotel with walls. Problem solved.

I’m not exactly sure where the communication breakdown happened but fast forward a week and I’m asking my doctor for some Xanax and preparing to stay in a place without walls next to lions. And this was all before I learned about the Black Mamba snake- one bite and arrivederci.

Let’s just say that I didn’t expect to like our trip to the North Mara Conservancy, much less come back alive.

***

I had a question ready to ask as soon as I found someone to ask.

It took two short flights from Nairobi to the North Mara airstrip; a grassy field dotted with jeeps awaiting the next shift. Our two Masai guides Francis and Siparo wore traditional robes and beaten up open-toed sandals. I was wearing boots because I didn’t share in their Black Mamba death wish.

As we got into their Toyota Land Cruiser, I decided to come straight out with my burning question: Excuse me, but do you two carry guns?

“No guns, no spears,” Francis smiled from the driver’s seat, “Only God will help us.”

That was not the answer I was hoping for.

I probed more deeply until I felt better: They’d grown up on the land, been doing this for years and the animals thought of the jeep as a large nonthreatening object, like a tree. The animals were much more interested in finding prey, and they didn’t consider humans prey.

I relaxed a bit and looked around. We were surrounded by wide open grassy plains with the occasional tree and rolling hills in the far distance. The September sun was warm on my face. It felt good. I patted the Xanax in my pocket reassuringly.

We were dropped at the Serian Original Camp, agreeing to meet back up with our guides in the late afternoon. That felt great until they added, to see if we could find some lions.

That first day we left at sunrise traversing the North Mara Conservancy, 80 thousand acres of protected land that border the Serengeti Plains. Only ten other camps had access to this unspoilt, untamed slice of nature. After seeing an abundance of animals … giraffe, gazelle, elephant, it was time for the main attraction and I’m not trying to be funny. The lion sat in the distance, surveying his kingdom, mane wild around his face. I’d never been so happy to be a tree.

After dinner my husband and I were escorted by a staff member carrying a stick and a flashlight to our tented suite. The ensuite tent had running hot water and electricity. There was no WIFI. If we were attacked in the night we’d have to scream.

The zippered tent was built on a platform and had a porch overlooking the Mara River. The rushing water lulled me into a surprisingly deep slumber.

The next day, after a sunrise drive Francis and Siparo set up a table and chairs for us and then laid out a sumptuous buffet on the hood of the jeep- juicy melon, peaches, fresh squeezed juice, homemade granola, jam, toast, hard boiled eggs, and steaming coffee. After making sure nothing was stalking my granola, I began to eat. And somehow eating outside by a stream, shaded by a huge tree was magical.

By sundown cocktails, I was sold. For three days I didn’t think about emails, Instagram, the news, President who? I became obsessed with spotting animals with my binoculars. My world was only the gorgeous landscape and its inhabitants. Fascination trumped fear- learning about animal behaviour- the hierarchy, survival of the fittest, elephants are unpredictable, lionesses do the hunting, giraffes prune all the trees, hyenas are the garbage collectors.

I asked a lot of questions, not about things like how much sedation would stop an attacking buffalo, but questions I wouldn’t normally ask, like: How long will that cub live with its mother? Why are the wildebeest, zebras and gazelles grazing so nonchalantly?

Aren’t they worried about being eaten? How fast can a cheetah run? And even – without a thought for my own survival but purely out of curiosity – Where do the black mambas live?

I even stepped out of the jeep with Siparo, going on walks, keeping a lookout while Francis drove the jeep slowly nearby.

There’s nothing like walking in the wild, my senses were on high alert, noticing every footprint, every rustling in the grass or creature in the distance.

I can’t tell you how relaxing it is to get absorbed in another world, a vital world that is untouched, by man and has its own natural order. My kids texted me after a few days to see how I was doing, was I okay?

I looked around. I was doing okay. I was better than okay. I was stimulated and awe inspired. I had challenged myself at 63 and confirmed that not only was staying alive important to me but so was living.

October, 2025

The post I Have Begrudgingly Become an Adventure Traveler in my 60’s – THIS IS WHAT I’VE LEARNED. appeared first on Elena Bowes.