It has been such a pleasure to serve as the Library and Bookstore Liaison for Sisters in Crime since October 2021, where I’ve had the honor of awarding a total of $12,000 in We Love Libraries Grants to libraries across the United States. With the help of the We Love Bookstores and Libraries News editor, Gail Lukasik, I've thoroughly enjoyed sharing the WLL News with you and connecting with SinC members, who have contributed over thirty articles highlighting their favorite libraries. My term comes to an end on October 1st, and I am excited to hand over my responsibilities to the dedicated SinC board members, who will take over for me.

 

For this issue, I am delighted to share new SinC board member, Nina Wachsman’s article about some of the amazing trips she’s taken to do research for her novels.

 

I am also pleased to announce that the October 2025 We Love Libraries Grant winner is the Franklin County Library in Winchester, Tennessee. 

How Far I Go for My Writing: Traveling for Research of Historical Mysteries by Nina Wachsman

At night, walking through the narrow labyrinthine paths of Venice, not much seems to have changed since the seventeenth century. It is why I like to travel to the place I write about, since it provides the essential details of the setting and often the inspiration for the plot or characters of my novels. Now, not being as crunched by time and expenses as in my younger days, and with the help of mileage points, I have the opportunity to travel for my writing.

 

It was during my travels I first discovered a ‘gallery of beauties’ which inspired my debut historical mystery.  In my novel, the commission of an English lord to paint the portraits of the most beautiful women of Venice activates a murderer, who poisons the subjects of the portraits one by one. 

It was on a visit to Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, that I first saw a Gallery of Beauties. Thirty-six portraits of the most beautiful women of Munich remain of the hundred or so commissioned by Bavarian King Ludwig I. On a visit to Hampton Court Palace in London, I accidentally discovered two more Galleries of Beauties of two different kings who lived there—one with the portraits of the women of William III’s court, and another created for Charles II, mostly of his mistresses, known as the ‘Windsor Beauties.’ Evidently, portrait galleries of beautiful women were a status symbol for kings and nobles, and it should come as no surprise that there is also one at the palace of Versailles.

 

Since the fifteenth century, one of the reasons Venice became a tourist destination was due to its beautiful women–courtesans like the famous Veronica Franco. Therefore, I thought that a commission, similar to the King of Bavaria’s, for the portraits of beautiful women, in the city known for its beautiful women, was the perfect idea to fuel the plot of my first novel.

 

A Beautiful Woman in Venice by Kathleen Ann Gonzalez (Supernova 2015) which I bought at a bookstore in Venice was a lucky find. It profiles the most illustrious women of Renaissance Venice, including a woman prodigy who was the first woman to receive a doctorate from a university, women glassmakers who inherited their father’s businesses instead of their brothers, and women artists and writers. They became the models for my fictitious subjects of the Gallery of Beauties, and the targets of a determined murderer. 

The stories and portraits I discovered on my travels not only fed my plotlines, but helped me know my characters better, including what they looked like. In the National Portrait Gallery in London hangs the portrait of Thomas Howard, the Earl of Arundel. He was known as ‘the Collector Earl’ because of his many trips to Italy to bring back its treasures for his estate’s collection. Perfect model for the English lord who commissions the portraits in my novel.

   

Besides the one portrait of Lord Arundel in London, when I visited the famous Isabel Gardner Museum in Boston, it was not the empty frames in the gallery that made me gasp, it was the discovery of a full-length portrait, painted by Peter Paul Rubens, of Lord Arundel. When I saw it, I felt like I had just met up with an old friend.

 

Art museums and their paintings are a very important source to understand the hairstyles, the clothes of the men and the women I am writing about. In my second novel, another Englishman, Sir George Villiers, is a main character. He was known as a bisexual dandy who became a favorite of King James I while romancing many of the ladies of court. In London, in the collection of Lord Guinness, which includes many seventeenth century portraits, is a portrait of Sir George Villiers.  His sleek good looks are enhanced in the full-length portrait in a dramatic outfit of white and red. It was easy to see how he merited his reputation.

 

Perhaps it is my art background or my love of travel that shapes my research preferences. I believe the books, paintings and settings I discover on my trips provide the mental images and color to help bring my fictions to life.

 

Website: https://www.ninawachsman.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegalleryofbeauties/

The We Love Libraries Winner – Franklin County Library in Winchester, Tennessee!

 

From the WLL application, “The Franklin County Library is the sole public library in our county serving a population of over 40,000, including 12 schools. We have a collection of 30,000+ items with access to much more via our state library. We plan to use the We Love Libraries $500 grant to do some or all of the following: Host a mystery-themed escape room. Host a virtual game of Clue using a female-authored script to create a crime scene in the library that patrons solve. Have a CosPlay with our favorite murder mystery characters from female-authored titles, and hold a writers’ workshop that will empower girls and teens to explore crime and mystery writing using female-authored novels as prizes.”

 

Website: https://franklincountylibrary.org/index.html

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fclbry/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fcwinchesterlibrary/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WLL and WLB News Editor: Gail Lukasik’s fifth mystery and first gothic historical mystery is The Darkness Surrounds Us, Her memoir, White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing, was named one of the most inspiring stories of the year by The Washington Post. She is also the author of the Leigh Girard Mystery series and the stand-alone mystery, The Lost Artist. Gail appeared in the documentary, History of Memory, which is available on Amazon Prime. Her follow up book to WLH, What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed, was released in November 2024. Website: www.gaillukasik.com

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Looking for diverse books? For many years, SINC has curated Frankie’s List, an extensive list of crime novels by people of color and other marginalized groups. Frankie Y. Bailey, building on work by the late Eleanor Taylor Bland, began to compile a list of published Black crime writers over a decade ago. Frankie has expanded the list to include other WOC and LGBTQ+ authors. Here’s a link: https://www.sistersincrime.org/page/FrankiesList