Welcome to Sis-Stories!

Firstly, a quick hello. I’m Kate, author of four historical novels, and soon to be a genre-jumper with a contemporary psychological thriller in the edits phase with my UK publisher Joffe Books. My historical novels all feature real, but sometimes overlooked, historical events and people, and I hope readers of my free Sis-Stories newsletter will consider supporting my work by buying/reading/recommending my fiction. If you are just getting started here, this post about sisters in my most recent novel, The Scandalous Life of Nancy Randolph, might be a good place to start.

So why this obsession with sisters?

I’m fascinated by sisters. It’s not a new thing, although it’s an interest that has certainly deepened over time. For years, and without really knowing why, I’ve been collecting them – historical groups of sisters – diving down internet rabbit holes, buying up books for future reading, and finding sisters in novels and in the news. The frequency and importance of sisters in our lives and literature is a real thing, a seam of gold waiting to be found, because sisters are, and have always been, everywhere. ‘Sisterhood’ exists for a reason. The power of women working together doesn’t rely on sisters being biologically related, but I’d argue that our history of familial sisters – some known, some forgotten, but intrinsically understood – has taught us to embrace sisterhood in all its forms and attain some of society’s greatest achievements. I’m going to write about them all here.

My sister collecting habit began with the Mancinis. Around 2006 I started writing a novel about Athenais, Madame de Montestpan. Who was she? Only the most glamorous, clever and long-lasting mistress of Louis XIV. She’s a gem of a character for a historical novelist – hot-tempered, ambitious and possibly dangerous, criminally so. She also had a sister (not the nicest), but it was through her entanglement in the Affair of the Poisons, a scandal that rocked the court at Versailles and involved numerous French aristocratic families in accusations of poisoning and witchcraft, that I learned about the Mancini Sisters.

First, meet Olympe de Soissons, born Olympe Mancini in 1639. Neice to Cardinal Mazarin, one of the Sun King’s closest advisors, Olympe was probably an early lover of the famously amorous Louis XIV, as was her sister Marie. Research for a historical novel in some ways resembles a dust bunny. There are hundreds of tit-bits and facts and snippets that have no place in the end novel but gather as a historical novelist researches period, place and people. Olympe and Marie were accused poisoners, certainly earning their place in my novel, but there was nowhere for another sister, Hortense, who just happened to be a lover of Charles II, to make an appearance. The frustration was real. I wanted to lean into their story. How, I wondered, did they get on with each other? Were they friends, enemies or something in between? As a historical novelists I love the gaps almost as much as the research. And researching real women in history throws up gaps left, right and centre.

After the Mancini sisters, I switched century and continent. I had been reading a lot about P.T. Barnum. My first published short story was about a giantess, Anna Swan (no sisters of note, sorry), and I’m often drawn to historical stories, real or imagined, with a Victorian circus/vaudeville vibe. Through Barnum, I found the Sutherland Sisters, seven long-haired singing sisters, reputed to have 37 feet of hair between them. Did I need to know all about them? You bet I did. And so it began.

But why? Why sisters in particular?

Is it because I don’t have a sister, although I am one? Is it the fascination of my mother having three sisters who, as a girl, she ranked by attribute (prettiest, best at maths, neatest handwriting, fastest runner)? Or watching my mother-in-law battle for superiority with her older sister for over eighty years now? Or is it because of the Williams Sisters? As a tennis fan, I have loved watching and admiring Venus and Serena’s, grace and their ability to compete both against each other and together. Perhaps as I write this substack I’ll find out.

So welcome to a place where I plan to share the sisters I’ve found in history and in fiction, where I’ll talk about reading and writing about sisters, and tell the stories of amazing women I plan to fill my hours with as my nest is now empty and there’s nothing to stop me doing this but myself.

Kate

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