The USA is 250 years old this month, and in honor of the occasion LibraryThing sat down with authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, who recently collaborated on A Founding Mother, a historical novel about Abigail Adams published by William Morrow in May 2026. A bestselling author of historical fiction, Dray earned her undergraduate degree in Government from Smith College, and her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, and has worked as a lawyer, game designer and teacher. Her many works include the Cleopatra’s Daughter trilogy, about the life of Cleopatra Selene II, and stand-alone novels like The Women of Chateau Lafayette (2021). Kamoie, also a bestselling author of historical fiction, is a historian who earned her undergraduate degree from Dickinson College and her MA and PhD in early American history from the College of William and Mary. She has published two nonfiction works on early America—Neabsco and Occoquan: The Tayloe Family Iron Plantations, 1730-1830 (2003) and Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family and Virginia’s Gentry, 1700-1860 (2007)—and has worked as a history professor at the university level, most recently at the US Naval Academy. Before their most recent collaboration, Dray and Kamoie also wrote America’s First Daughter (2016) and My Dear Hamilton (2018) together. They sat down with Abigail this month to discuss their new book.

In your previous novels you’ve explored the lives of Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph and Eliza Schuyler Hamilton. What made you decide to write about Abigail Adams next?

Readers had been asking us to write about Abigail for a long time, but when we realized that our next book was going to come out in 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the choice was a no brainer. Abigail was so far ahead of her time, so direct and unflinching, and so modern in her sentiments, that she was the perfect voice from the founding generation to speak to Americans today.

Tell us a little bit about Abigail Adams and her life, and what makes her such an interesting figure. (Full disclosure: as a bicentennial baby, I was named after Abigail Adams, so I already find Adams a fascinating figure!).

Love that! Abigail was in many ways an ordinary farm wife of Braintree, Massachusetts, at the outbreak of the revolutionary war. She lived in a modest home. She was raising four children. She didn’t have a formal education. But in other ways, she had always been extraordinary. We’ve read a lot of letters from 18th-century women at this point in our career, and none of them display the sense of self-possession of Abigail Adams. She seems to have been a smart, rebellious, independent girl from the get go. She chose a husband who would let her become more than an ordinary farm wife. She became an entrepreneur. A diplomat. A canny political operator. And much, much more.

Adams is well known for her writing, including her famous “Remember the Ladies” letter. How much did you rely on her letters or other work, in writing A Founding Mother? Were there other sources–specific biographies or histories—that were helpful?

While always relying heavily on the original letters, and in this case there were many by Abigail and her family and friends, as much as possible, we use the figures’ own words from their letters in their dialogue and internal monologue. We were also guided by one extraordinary biography by Woody Holton and spent a lot of time with David McCullough’s book on John Adams.

What were some of the most interesting things you learned about Adams, in the course of your research for the book?

The most surprising thing we learned was that although Abigail and John Adams shared one of America’s greatest love stories, it was not a fairy tale. Their marriage was under strain when he was away in Europe—there was a forgotten founding father who is probably better off forgotten who crossed the line with Abigail in inappropriate ways—and that Abigail definitely kept some secrets from John.

All three of your books so far have focused on women who were related to more famous men—in the case of Abigail Adams, her husband John Adams. Why is it important to tell their stories? Which other historical women would you like to highlight?

First of all, the irony is that Abigail may be better remembered than John at this point! But to your point, it’s important to tell the stories of the women who stood behind, alongside, and sometimes even ahead of the men who are said to have founded this country. They didn’t do it alone. Women built this country too and deserve the credit. Because when we don’t acknowledge their contributions, people end up deluded into thinking that “traditional” women were fundamentally dependent and happy about it. That wasn’t true for any of the founding mothers we have written about, and especially not Abigail Adams, who was socially conservative in a number of ways while still being an absolute firecracker when it came to women’s rights and the role they could and should play in government. So if the women who founded this country aren’t “traditional” then who is?

As for other women we would like to highlight, so many! We always have to figure out the venn diagram between what we’re both passionate about, what readers want, and what our publisher thinks will be most marketable. But it really is our mission to do as Abigail said and “Remember the Ladies.”

Tell us about your writing process, when working together. How does that work? Are there specific challenges to writing as a team, or specific pleasures?

We have no set process! Sometimes we alternate chapters. Sometimes we assign whole chunks. One specific challenge is technology. Frequently, we break Google Docs or Microsoft Word because we have so many comments or footnotes. Sometimes we are forced to sit at a table together over one manuscript and shift the keyboard back and forth as we make decisions. But that’s just a good excuse to get together. We enjoy each other’s company and there is a certain magic in our collaboration born of deep respect for each other’s talents and writing judgments. We really do make each other better. And we love sharing little insights and research nuggets and nerding out together at historical sites.

What comes next for you two? Do you have further collaborations in mind, or individual projects in the offing?

We do have another collaboration in mind, and we can’t tell you what it is yet, but we’re excited! We’re both also working on solo novels, so there’s much more to come!

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

We both have our own books on our shelves, of course. That gives you a nice pick-me-up when you’re having a bad day. Then there are all the books written by friends and other great writers we admire. Laura has a prime spot for The Alice Network by Kate Quinn on her shelf while Stephanie favors Kate’s The Rose Code. Then there are all the research books. So many.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

Stephanie’s two most recent—both of which she recommends highly—are Allison Pataki’s It Girl, and Madeline Martin’s The Secret Book Society. Laura recently read and loved Olesya Gilmore’s The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru and David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with groundbreaking author and poet Cynthia Pelayo, who in 2022 became the first Puerto Rican and first Latina to win a Bram Stoker Award after her Crime Scene took the prize in the Poetry Collection category. Her Into The Forest And All The Way Through was a 2020 nominee, also in the Poetry Collection category, while her Children of Chicago was a 2021 nominee in the Novel category. Pelayo earned a BA in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago, a MS from Roosevelt University, and a MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently pursuing a PhD in English. Her MFA writing thesis, Lotería, was republished in 2023, winning an International Latino Book Award Silver Medal in the Best Collection of Short Stories category. A co-publisher of Burial Day Books, which focuses on horror writing, she is the author of numerous other books, stories and poems, including novels such as The Shoemaker’s Magician (2023), Forgotten Sisters (2024), and Vanishing Daughters (2025). Her new novel, It Came from Neverland, a work of horror inspired by the classic Peter Pan, was published by Crooked Lane Books earlier this month. Pelayo sat down with Abigail this month to discuss her new book.

Tell us a little bit about It Came from Neverland. How did the idea for the story first come to you?

Like many people, I grew up watching the Disney version of Peter Pan, and then I remember watching Hook with Robin Williams and being captivated, seeing Peter Pan as an adult who had to remember who he was. There was an older Wendy in that film, and that always stayed with me because I really wanted to know what Wendy’s story looked like aged into young adulthood.

When I went back to J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy and the original play, I worked out that Wendy would be in her early twenties at the start of the First World War. And then I learned that many young men at that time lied about their age to enlist, some of them were barely more than boys. It all felt like a perfect juxtaposition, these boys going off to war and Wendy’s trauma round caring for the Lost Boys from Neverland.

A woman of that time period would certainly not be believed if she tried to tell the truth about what she experienced as a child in Neverland, and so that certainly played into her experience. Then I thought well, Wendy at this age would certainly be in a position that reflected her character, and schoolteacher fit perfectly. The story wrote itself, because I knew that Wendy would do all that she could to protect those children and I also knew Peter Pan would surely return to whisk more children away to Neverland. So this story is that tale, what does she do to stop Peter Pan.

What drew you to Peter Pan, and what made you feel it was horror?

Peter Pan without Wendy Darling is just a boy screaming into the dark. The story only works because Wendy agrees to go with him to Neverland, and she goes because she is sweet and kind and she believes him. Wendy’s only failure here was that she had a good heart, which is just so sad because her being nice is why she was taken advantage of. She trusted someone who was manipulating her. Peter told her she was special, but what he really meant was that she was useful. She was given the role of mother to the Lost Boys, not because she was truly loved or valued, but because someone needed to do the mending. This is not fantasy. This is a domestic horror story dressed in fairy dusty.

In Peter and Wendy we’re also essentially told that growing up is a curse, but I push back on that. Growing up is the adventure, becoming yourself, and gaining autonomy is the gift.

Peter’s entire pitch was stay here, never change, never leave me. Shrink. Lost yourself to praise me. That’s not love. That’s control.

The horror was always there. I just removed the glitter.

What is it about fairy tales that speaks to you?

Fairy tales were the very first stories I was told as a child. “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” more. I hold all of them dear, even though many of them have a thread of terror, but I suppose that’s why I’m the writer I am today.

What I’ve come to understand is that fairy tales are an early societal warning system, in a way. They prepared us for danger, and that’s why they still work. Little Red Riding Hood is everyone who has been told not to talk to strangers on their way home. Bluebeard is everyone who has been warned to be cautious with suitors. Snow White is every person who has fallen victim to the cruelty of jealousy. These stories survived centuries because beneath them there is some truth that can be applied to many of our experiences today. They encode the things that we should say out loud, but don’t because of all of those strange polite society rules, things like – don’t trust the stranger who flatters you, the beautiful thing is likely the trap, or even, the person who promises you forever can very well be the one who seeks to destroy you.

When looking at all of these through a horror lens, they echo to the horror writer what is our job – and that is to tell the truth. Horror is the genre of truth, to highlight the danger, to be a witness to survival, more. So much of what fairy tales do speak to this.

Are there other classic works you’re interested in transforming?

Yes, and the one upcoming is a Frankenstein retelling titled Everina from Union Square & Co. I have more, but I can’t mention those quite yet.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process.

I generally write in the early morning. In the evenings that’s when I tend to answer email or work on lectures for any workshops I’m teaching or work on any of my own homework.

In terms of my actual writing sessions, I read before I write, generally I will read some poetry and then start writing. If you’re asking about the big questions regarding how do I create something, I think I’m a pretty methodical writer in that yes, I allow discovery to happen, but as of recent, there is a lot of researching, planning, and pre-writing that goes into my actual writing. Then there is editing, and that is an entirely different process. I tell writers to think of these processes as three separate demands, research and preparation requires one aspect of your brain, editing requires a different aspect of your brain and the actual writing, which is a completely different process. When you are writing you are creating, allow yourself to have fun and explore when you’re actually writing.

What comes next for you?

Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror comes out September 29 from Simon & Schuster. It’s an anthology I edited that features Mariana Enríquez, Agustina Bazterrica, Mónica Ojeda, Isabel Cañas, Daniel José Older, Zoraida Córdova, and others, with a foreword by Brenda Lozano. Latiné horror isn’t a subgenre, it’s a tradition that I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to share with readers.

After that, Everina, which is my Frankenstein retelling.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

I read a lot of poetry and classics. My bookshelves reflect that, so we have Lorca, Vallejo, Pizarnik, Anne Sexton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Adrienne Rich, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Homer, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, more. Yes, there’s horror as well, Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, Mariana Enríquez, Carmen Maria Machado, Daphne du Maurier. And, of course fairy tales, so many fairy tales and non-fiction texts analyzing fairy tales.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I am reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I love world building, and here, we have a world that operates on its own logic, the architecture of the space, and the feelings it evokes. Clarke gives us infinite halls that become both prison and sanctuary, and it’s this tension that I’m drawn to as both a reader and writer.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with author and romance enthusiast Katie Holt, whose 2024 debut, Not In My Book, follows the stormy relationship between a romance novelist and a literary author who are forced to work together on a book. A New York City resident and Tennessee native, Holt earned her degree in English and Creative Writing at NYU, while working at famed Manhattan bookstore, The Strand. When not writing, she works at St. Martin’s Press as an assistant editor. Her second novel, The Last Page, about the romance between a bookseller who dreams of running the bookstore where she works and the owner’s oblivious grandson who has inherited everything, is due out from Alcove Press later in May. Holt sat down with Abigail this month to discuss her new book.

How did the idea for The Last Page first come to you? Were you inspired by your own time as a bookseller? (Full disclosure: I also worked at The Strand for a number of years). Were other bookstore romances, like the one in You’ve Got Mail, an influence?

A fellow Strand-er!! That’s so cool! We’ll definitely have to see if we crossed paths with any of the same booksellers.

I was definitely inspired by my time there. I think it’d be impossible not to be! The Strand has a rich history and while I worked there, lots of the booksellers told me stories about Ben McFall. They had nothing but wonderful things to say about them and it was obvious he left such a deep mark on The Strand. I thought a lot about what it meant to leave behind a legacy in a bookstore. To be surrounded by books and for him to really be the most talked. I never met him, of course, so Leo was really inspired by my late grandfather. He was the coolest person I’ve ever met in my entire life and was a huge reader and supporter of literature.

I’m sure you know that the group of booksellers at The Strand were opinionated and eclectic and I loved it. I’m still friends with so many booksellers there and adore them. The bookseller relationships and dynamics were inspired by them for sure.

Nora Ephron is one of my greatest inspirations, so totally! You’ve Got Mail also has such a fun crew that are all different from each other, but they come together to create some hilarious scenes. I’ve always loved Notting Hill, too, and how that small shop just seems to be bursting with books. The Last Page has plenty of room in their store, but in my mind, books are just spilling over every edge of every surface.

You’ve been a romance advocate in both your professional and academic life, arguing to your college professors that the genre was worthy of consideration. What makes romance so special to you, and why should readers pay attention to it?

Oh goodness, I could wax poetic for days. I always say my favorite part of the romance genre is the HEA (happily ever after). That readers are guaranteed a safety net and it allows writers to explore some really heavy topics! The Last Page discusses grief throughout—what it means to different people, how it can ebb and flow, and how it doesn’t always make sense. Henry is also someone who suffers from depression and feels really embarrassed about it. I loved that I could discuss these topics the way I wanted to and tell the reader, “Don’t worry. They’re safe and you are, too.”

A lot of the time in college, I was told that these character arcs or plots I wrote were devalued by interweaving a love story that ends happily. I had one professor who always said, “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that all the characters you write end up together.” Well, they do! It always blew my mind. Why would love decrease the value of anything? Isn’t it beautiful that you can evolve and change and grow and fall in love with someone who’s watched all of that happen? Who loves you before, after, and throughout?

There’s also something really special about how the romance genre varies so much within the genre. To me, it demonstrates how everyone views love differently and how everyone loves differently. I just think it’s beautiful and something special and worthy of celebrating.

The Last Page features a bookseller from New York City and a bookstore owner from Tennessee—a profession and two places that have been important to you personally. Are there specific spots or incidents in Ella and Henry’s tale that were inspired by your own life story?

I’m definitely inspired by my life in the city, and it’s impossible for me to not write about the things happening around me. (However, I unfortunately didn’t fall in love with a hot, shy, nerdy former football player while working at The Strand). New York is such a romantic city and I work hard to make the city feel like a character in the book. A reader
tagged me in a NOT IN MY BOOK book tour they did across NYC when they were visiting and I burst into tears. Those pictures of them at Peculiar Pub and Washington Square Park were exactly why I include real restaurants and locations. Specifically in this book, Ella and Henry go to Kingston Hall, which is one of my favorite places. It’s buy one get one free beer on the weekends!! And there’s a great pool table and such interesting interior design. I’ve brought my laptop there plenty of times to get some writing done and thought it was such a cool place for them to stumble into.

Although I loved being a bookseller, I did have the quintessential yet frustrating “I saw a book with a black cover here three weeks ago. Can you help me find it?” which I include in The Last Page. Bill Clinton also did come in and sift through American History. There wasn’t a naked man that ran through the store—he had on a speedo in real life.

Something that was really inspired by my life was Leo. Like I said, he was based on my grandfather who I was really close to. He had been pretty sick for a few years and every time I saw him, I braced myself because it could’ve been the last. The thought of losing him haunted me and I think I wrote this in a place of nearly preemptive grief? I kind of think of it like a letter from my past self telling me that I’ll survive losing him, even if it hurts like hell sometimes. He never got to hold a copy of The Last Page, though, I know he would’ve been proud and read every single word (as he mortifyingly told me he did with Not In My Book).

Tell us a little bit about your writing process—how and where you like to write, and how you construct your stories. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I have to plot. I recently finished writing a book that I tried to pants and it was horrible. I hated every single second of it, deleted everything, and started over.

My process has evolved as my life has! For Not In My Book, I was home for the pandemic and wrote the first draft in my childhood bed and my parent’s kitchen table. I had to have my Beats on and a bag of BBQ chips and Kombucha by my side (in my head they counteracted each other??).

Nowadays, though, I love to write in cafes or bars in the city. I’ve always thought it was very Cool Girl when I saw people writing or reading at bars. Recently, I’ve been grabbing my notebook and physically writing out scenes or chapters. I also love to listen to music while I write (mostly Taylor Swift) and think about how the characters fit that song or if they ever have. Because Rosie definitely listened to “Welcome to New York” for a month straight when she moved to New York and Ella definitely had “Honey” on a constant loop.

What advice would you give to up-and-coming authors, particularly up-and-coming romance authors?

When I was in high school, I took a writing course with Rachel Carter and it completely transformed the way I wrote and my perspective on it. She told me to write as much as I read and read a lot. The only way to know the mechanics of the genre or even a book is to completely entrench yourself in it. Read lots and lots of books and write every day. Even if it’s just a sentence! Writing is a muscle and if you don’t exercise it, it’ll weaken.

I also think it’s important to give yourself grace. No one is publishing their very first draft. It’s okay for your writing to be terrible and make sense to no one else but you. Sometimes it’s all in the revisions! But don’t be too hard on yourself.

What’s next for you? Do you have any books currently in the works?

I have a couple of things in the works!! I’m working on two books right now that are very different from each other. I don’t want to reveal too much just yet, but these really feel like the stories I’ve been waiting to tell for sometime, so I’m super excited about them!

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

All kinds of romance! I really don’t shy away from any of the subgenres. I’ve been into speculative and dark recently, but I’m hoping historical makes a resurgence, especially now that Lisa Kleypas is back!

It’s really rare I read outside of romance, but that’s my small goal for this year. I’ve always been a physical reader, but I’m dabbling in some book club fiction and nonfiction through my audiobooks.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I just finished Tessa Bailey’s new time travel romance, Broken Rival, and I feel like I’m having a parasocial relationship with them. Like…it’s that serious. A Little Buzzed by Alys Murray was so intensely sexy that my Apple Watch asked if I was working out because my heartbeat was so high. That is a MUST read! I also read The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O’Clover recently and was stunned by it and the musings on love and life after a breakup. The characters are so well drawn and she strikes the exact right balance of emotionally intense and absolute yearning. Secret Nights and Northern Lights by Megan Oliver is also what second chance romance dreams are made of. I cannot wait to read more from her.