Kathleen Kaufman, ”The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey” (Kensington Books, 2025)

This fascinating novel—dual-time historical with a fantastical overlay, based in part on the life of the author’s great-grandfather, a nineteenth-century charlatan—follows the career of a young Scotswoman named Nairna Liath. When we meet her in 1900, Nora, sixteen years old, travels the Scottish countryside at the insistence of her father, Tavish, who supports himself and his daughter by hawking her supposed skills as a medium—expressed through his own mangled Gaelic mixed with a series of parlor tricks that Nairna has mastered. But we soon find out that the joke’s on Tavish: Nairna really does have psychic talents, especially in reading Tarot cards. Her ability attracts attention from the Society for Psychical Research, setting Nairna on her path to become the spiritualist Nora Grey.

Her tale is intertwined with (in fact, propelled by) that of Nairna’s grandmother, Lottie Liath, in the 1860s. Lottie has just lost her husband in a coal mining accident, and when she protests the lack of financial support provided by the uncaring mine administration, the manager has her arrested and thrown in jail. From there, the pregnant Lottie ends up in an asylum. And it’s the asylum, where she is subjected to psychic experiments, that brings her increasingly into conversation with Nora.

The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey (Kensington Books, 2025) is rich in drama—both tragedy and comedy—as well as rapid switches of identity accompanied by pseudo news reports from various types of sources that illuminate Nora’s and Lottie’s stories in various ways. It’s tremendous fun and heartbreaking at the same time, and it’s best just to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. If you do, I guarantee you will love every minute of this story.

Kathleen Kaufman, a native Coloradan and long-time resident of Los Angeles, California, is the author of six previous books. A University of Southern California alum, she teaches high school English and is a writing and composition adjunct professor at Santa Monica College. The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey is her latest novel.

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in June 2025.

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