Author Review: Eleanor Alice Burford Hibbert

I’d never heard of Eleanor Alice Burford Hibbert until I prepared to write this author review, but I had certainly heard of Victoria Holt, Jean Plaidy, and Phillippa Carr. I knew they were all the same woman, but I didn’t know who that woman was until I looked it up. Eleanor Alice Burford was born in Kensington in 1906. She learned how to read at the age of four and devoured every book she could find. She had inherited her love of reading from her father, himself a bibliophile. She attended a business college and learned secretarial skills, being put … Continue reading

Author Review – Tony Hillerman

Tony Hillerman is one of my mother’s favorite authors. Let’s take a closer look at this man who has become famous for his Navajo mysteries. Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, is located near a Benedictine mission that served the Citizen Band Potowatomie Tribe. When Tony was born there in 1925, he was one of many farm boys who attended a boarding school for Native American girls, there being no other school nearby. Tony’s books ring with an authenticity hard to duplicate through mere research; this early immersion in the ways of the People explains how he achieved such reality in his writing. … Continue reading