Hazel Tharsing was born in California in 1888. Intensely shy, she learned to meet the world as the glamorous actress Carlotta Monterey, by far the greatest acting role of her twenty-year career. Counted among the most beautiful women in America, she married a British aristocrat in London, then the twenty-year-old son of her mother’s lover in San Francisco, then a famous artist in New York, and finally America’s greatest playwright, Eugene O’Neill, in Paris. This novel about her life is an … [Read more...] about Becoming Carlotta: A Biographical Novel by Brenda Murphy
After the Voyage: An Irish American Story by Brenda Murphy
At the heart of After the Voyage is an American immigrant family making its way forward on a road that is sometimes rocky and steep. From different counties in Ireland, Maggie Qualter and Richard Terrett both sail to America as young adults in 1870 after surviving Ireland’s Great Hunger as children. Maggie works as a maid for a wealthy family. Richard finds work in a tannery. After the death of the young wife he loves passionately, Richard marries Maggie with the help of a deceptive … [Read more...] about After the Voyage: An Irish American Story by Brenda Murphy
