If you’re ever in New Orleans, and you have any love of books, I urge you to block out an hour or two for Garden District Books. It’s a fantastic venue with a great collection of bestsellers and collectible classics alike. Their section on New Orleans is fantastic, though of course I recommend you take some time in the Science Fiction and Fantasy section as well.
The owners, Christopher, Barkley, and Carroll are personal friends of mine and are just wonderful to chat with. Christopher is a wellspring of historical knowledge in general, but New Orleans lore in particular. If you have a chance to talk to him, ask him about the New Orleans socialite who so charmed the prince of Monaco that he turned his land into a land of luxury and mystique to try to draw her there.
Barkley also happens to run a really great breakfast and lunch shop in the same building, just downstairs, called the Chicory House. Lots of great choices on the menu, but I personally recommend their Chicory coffee with either the Spicy Ham and Brie sandwich or the Southern BLT. These aren’t mass produced Starbucks fare, they are deliciously hand made. Their soup of the day is usually something special, too.
Anyway, I was there last Tuesday, December 10th, for our launch of 1919: The Romanov Rescue. Sadly, Tom and Kacey couldn’t join me. It was a great time, Christopher, Carroll, and Barkley threw an amazing event. I gave a brief talk about the Russian Civil War, then answered questions for awhile. The crowd was sharp, curious, and sometimes intimidatingly well-educated. Aided by an excellent peach Old Fashioned from GDB’s bar, I think I represented my writing partners well enough—or at the very least had an excellent time trying to.
Making the event even more special was the fact that Michele was able to come with me (she snapped all these great pics). As if it weren’t already awesome enough, we had a special surprise guest appearance from our close friends, Rick and Monalisa Foster, who drove all the way from Texas to support me without even telling us they’d be there. Monalisa, incidentally, is another Baen author with a number of excellent science fiction novels and short work available (links embedded in the images below).
Threading the Needle is character driven adventure science fiction set on frontier world that encompasses the best elements of a classic Western film with the wonder of interstellar exploration and am absolutely BASED tale of personal responsibility and individual liberty, at all costs.
Her Ravages of Honor series is a little spicy, if you like the heat, it comes with a galaxy-spanning epic of love, betrayal, intrigue and decent people wrestling with the cruel demands of dynastic politics and succession.
We were able to finish off the night with truly excellent pizza and beer from NOLA Brewing.
Even though it’s six hours from our house, Garden District Books feels like my hometown bookstore every time I’m there, and not just because my titles are on the shelves. I can’t thank Christopher, Barkley, Carroll and their staff enough for throwing such a great party and for running such a wonderful shop.
Incidentally, if history, alternate history, military action, or, heck, maybe some dynastic romance is your thing—both Romanov Books are available wherever books are sold. If you have a favorite local bookstore, I recommend you give them your trade, they can find our first two Romanov Reign books under Simon and Schuster if they need to order them for you.
If you do want to grab them off Amazon, as of this writing (16 December, 2025) they are still slated to arrive before Christmas.
I do use Amazon Affiliate links (embedded in the cover art above), they pay us a small commission if you happen to order from my site. That money goes towards things like maintaining this website ad-free, con appearances, and other writing expenses.
I hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful holiday season.
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