History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Coming This Fall: Chrysanthemum and Marigold Marsh, Girl Detectives

| July 1, 2021

If you enjoyed my middle grade detective mystery, The Trouble with the Tick-Tock Tabby, you’re going to enjoy the book I’m putting out this fall: Chrysanthemum and Marigold Marsh, Girl Detectives. This book will collect three Marsh sisters stories: “The Recondite Riddle of the Rose Rogue” (their first appearance, and the first story I ever published) […]

The Brass and Glass Trilogy

| June 1, 2021

It’s been just over three years since the second book in my Brass and Glass trilogy came out, making it about four years and two years for the other two books. It remains the most ambitious project I’ve completed to date, and it all came from a short story about a wild goose chase for a […]

TV Show Recommendation: The Nevers

| May 26, 2021

I had a lot of trepidation about watching The Nevers, knowing that Joss Whedon was involved. Because while I am a fan of a lot of Joss Whedon’s shows, I’m not a fan of his behavior, and I’ve been gradually moving away from supporting his previous projects. But The Nevers hooked me from almost the first […]

A Treat for Brass and Glass Fans

| February 9, 2021

Another result of some recent cleaning I’ve been doing was finding the hard copy of a map that I sketched for the Brass and Glass series. It didn’t appear in the books because it never went farther than this very rough sketch, but in case you’ve ever wondered where the various cities in the Brass and Glass […]

My Steampunk Trilogy

| December 31, 2020

As I’m working toward the release of my first stand-alone novel, I don’t want folks to forget about my steampunk trilogy. Though the topics are different, I think people who enjoyed the Brass and Glass series will also like Promise Me Nothing, and if you come into my writing with my young adult urban fantasy, you might […]

Review of Tower of Mud and Straw by Yaroslav Barsukov

| October 14, 2020

Tower of Mud and Straw by Yaroslav Barsukov (Metaphorosis Publishing, 2021) is a beautiful blend of steampunk and fantasy together in a novella that both asks and answers many questions. The main character, Shea Ashcroft, is a diplomat who made a choice to save lives that resulted in him being “politely” exiled, sent away from […]

Story Arc in a Triology

| May 26, 2020

The nice thing about writing a trilogy or other series is that you can have a story arc that lasts longer than a single book, allowing for a much larger story arc. Taken individually, the books in the Brass and Glass series each have their own arcs: 1) find the Cask; 2) find the map; […]

Fun Steampunk Reads to Pass the Time

| March 19, 2020

If you’re looking for books to read to pass the time, may I recommend my steampunk series, Brass and Glass? It’s action and adventure with an ensemble cast, similar to if Firefly was on an airship. The trilogy is complete, so no need to wait around for the ending, either! You can find all three of them […]

Mechanical Cats and Mystery!

| March 5, 2020

Chrysanthemum and Marigold Marsh, girl detectives, investigate a break-in at their family’s mechanical garden, and discover the culprit is a mechanical cat. After learning that the mechanical cat has only a limited power supply, they must find the cat to return it to its owner. But Dover is a big place, and there are Built […]

Future Stories in the Brass and Glass World?

| February 13, 2020

I recently received a review on book three of my Brass and Glass trilogy in which the reader was hopeful that I would someday return to this world and write some more. While at the moment, I see Brass and Glass as a completed series, that doesn’t mean I’m against writing shorter fiction set in the same […]