Photography by Andrea Ceraso
Fiona Davis didn’t start writing historical fiction until she was 49…but it seems like it’s what she was born to do!
Fiona is a New York Times bestseller and has just released her eighth book, titled The Stolen Queen, set at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each of her novels is based in, around, and about one of New York City’s iconic buildings, including, in order of publication, The Dollhouse set in the Barbizon Hotel for Women, The Address set at The Dakota, The Masterpiece set at Grand Central Station, The Chelsea Girls set at the Chelsea Hotel, The Lions of Fifth Avenue set at the New York Public Library, Magnolia Palace set at the Frick Museum, The Spectacular set at Radio City Music Hall, and now The Stolen Queen.
Fiona was born in Canada and the family moved around a bit because of her dad’s work as a chemical engineer. She graduated from Brick Township High School in New Jersey. She pursued a minor in English at William & Mary, but moved to New York to start working as an actress right after college. “I worked as an actress for about ten years,” Fiona recalls. “I was in a couple of shows on Broadway, including one that was nominated for a Tony. I was in several soap operas and commercials, and worked with a theater company called Willow Cabin where we produced three shows each year. I enjoyed the work, but I didn’t like the lack of control, the way life changes on a whim with each audition and you can’t plan ahead.”
“So, in my thirties, I took one of those Myers-Briggs tests that tells you what you should do with your life,” Fiona says, recognizing with a smile that it sounds like too convenient of a plot line, “and it said I should be a journalist or a cop! I didn’t think working as a police officer in New York City was quite my style, so I enrolled in the Masters degree program at the Columbia Journalism School. That’s where I learned how to do research and how to shape a story. After graduation, I edited and wrote for a theater magazine, and then, over the course of about fifteen years, eventually developed an emphasis as a freelance writer focusing on health and women’s issues for magazines like Oprah and Women’s Health.”
“One day I came across the old Barbizon Hotel for Women on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street. The Barbizon Hotel – sometimes referred to around town as The Dollhouse – catered to women only, and had a long history as a women’s oasis and incubator. A place where future icons like Joan Didion, Grace Kelly, and Sylvia Plath stayed when they were just starting out. In 2005, the building was converted into luxury condominium apartments, and I learned that a dozen or so of the long-time residents still lived there. I was curious as to what it was like when these women – who paid around $300 a month in rent – shared the elevator with the guy who bought the $17 million penthouse. I thought it would make a good article,” Fiona says. “I did a ton of research but almost all the long-time residents, who were in their 80s and 90s, didn’t want to be interviewed. Then I realized it might make a better book than an article,” Fiona says, with hindsight proving her theory. “In my story, a resident who’s a nosy journalist starts digging into the background of one of her neighbors and a mystery ensues. As I’ve done in each of my books, the story is set in dual timelines – in The Dollhouse I wove the circumstances and tales of the women in 2016 with those of the residents during the ‘Golden Age’ of the Barbizon in the 1950s. And I used the story to address the ways that women’s voices and agency have changed over time – and the ways in which they haven’t. I didn’t tell anyone I was working on the book while I was writing it, but figured I’d keep going and see what emerged.”
“Each book and each story has had its own way of coming into being,” Fiona reveals. “When The Dollhouse was about to be published, I passed by The Dakota and thought it would be a fascinating building to write about, and began my fairly exhaustive research process, where I try to learn everything I can about the building and the people in it. In the case of The Dakota, I met with Andrew Alpern, who’d written an incredibly detailed and elaborative book about the building and who is considered the leading expert on the edifice – and maybe on New York City’s architectural history in general. I met with residents and people who’d worked in the building, I reviewed floor plans of each apartment, I toured as many apartments and as much of the building as I could. I use the factual history as a kind of scaffolding, and then layer a fictional story and characters over it. The Address weaves together the tale of The Dakota from the time when it was a lone fortress, standing alone on the West side of Central Park amidst ‘rocks, swamps, goats, and shanties’ – as one newspaper in the 1800s described the neighborhood – and then one hundred years later, from the point-of-view of a decorator who is stripping a Dakota apartment of its glory in order to install floor-to-ceiling mirrors and shag carpeting for one of the newly-minted millionaires moving in. I always include a mystery to keep the reader turning the pages, and let the two timelines collide.”
“Finding the story in each building is kind of organic. Each building reveals a unique history of its own, and there are always surprises. Did you know that the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street has a 7-room apartment that was designed for the superintendent and his family? Or that the painter John Singer Sargent co-founded an art school that operated on the top floor of Grand Central Terminal?” Fiona says. “I usually do research for four or five months, then write the first draft, which takes about four or five more months. I’m looking to see if the mystery holds up from beginning to end, and that there are no holes. I do about ten rounds of revisions, and then my agent does an edit, before I send the manuscript to my editor. I’m proud to say that Dutton/Penguin Random House has been my publisher from the start. They’re wonderful to work with and the entire team is incredible. Finally, I write the author’s note, where I try to make it very clear what’s fact and what’s fiction, as I know readers of historical fiction love to go down the same rabbit holes I did while researching.”
About her most recent release, The Stolen Queen, Fiona says, “It’s about mummies and secret curses, and reclaiming women’s proper role in history. Part of the story takes place in 1978, when an associate curator at the Met Museum named Charlotte is unwillingly teamed up with a over-eager young assistant. The story also jumps back to 1930s Egypt, when Charlotte was a young archaeologist. I love the way both ancient art and pop culture are embodied in the Met Museum, between the Egyptian Art Collection and the Met Gala, also known as the ‘Party of the Year’.”
Fiona spent two weeks in Egypt as part of her research. “In the novel, Charlotte is enthralled with the story of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was regent to an infant pharaoh and ruled successfully for twenty years, and then after her death she was erased – her images were actually hacked out of reliefs, her sculptures destroyed. At first, it was believed that the acts were ordered by the pharaoh because he was angry at being usurped, and the Met catalog from the last century even describes Hatshepsut as a ‘vain, ambitious and unscrupulous woman’. Later, a new theory came about, which the curator discovers during the course of the novel. I like to say that Hatshepsut was ‘revered, erased, reviled …and then restored’.”
In real life, Fiona spends the work week based on the Upper West Side and then escapes for weekends and most of the summer to what she calls her ‘forever house’ in South Salem. Her boyfriend, Greg Wands, writes thrillers. “We met one cold and rainy November night at Shakespeare & Company on the Upper West Side. I was doing a book signing, and Greg introduced himself – it turns out we shared the same publicist and publisher. We got a drink, and that was that. Not long after, I was looking for a weekend house and found the perfect one in South Salem,” Fiona says. “During Covid we spent most of the time at the house, set up on opposite ends of the dining room table, and that’s still pretty much how we work. Things really flow for us when we’re up here. We both like being able to look up and ask for a synonym or bounce the way something sounds off the other person.”
About her life as a B&NC local, Fiona details, “On Saturday, we hit the Gossett Brothers Farmer’s Market on Route 35 – and our regular stop there includes a standing order for coffee cake from Sharon of Sharamel. We like to cook at home most nights when we’re up here. But when my very English mom visited last month, we took her to the Horse & Hound in South Salem for a pint… which she loved. Greg and I also love to hike in the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.”
Not surprisingly, Fiona reads a lot. “I loved Agatha Christie as a kid, and I adore Edith Wharton, the way she starts a sentence making you think one way and then, with the turn of a phrase, bends it to imply the complete opposite. I do read a lot of historical fiction, and think Kate Quinn is one of the best in the genre. I also like Geraldine Brooks, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and recently finished a book by Evan Friss called The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, which emphasizes the importance of bookstores. And while I’m on that topic, let me give a shout-out to our local booksellers, like the Reading Room in Katonah, Booksy in Pound Ridge, and Elm Street Books in New Canaan. It’s exciting that a new bookstore is opening in Bedford, as well. I’ve also been lucky to speak at a number of our local libraries, including those in Lewisboro, Bedford, and New Canaan, and the librarians and staff have been so supportive of me and my work. And I love the book series they have going at the Bedford Playhouse.”
“I also have to mention how extraordinary it is that we have so many prominent female authors living in the area,” Fiona declares. “Lynda Cohen Loigman, Susie Orman Schnall, Amy Poeppel, Ann Leary, Wendy Walker, Jimin Han, Elise Hart Kipness. Some of us even have an occasional writers’ lunch and get together on an informal basis to share ideas and talk shop.”
Four years into her career as an author, at age 53, Fiona was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. But with proper treatment, exercise, and medication, Fiona is doing well and is working hard on her next book, which is set at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Upper Manhattan. “As well as writing novels, I’m also focused on drawing attention to Parkinson’s and acting as an advocate. I serve on the Patient’s Council of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and included a character with Parkinson’s in my book set at Radio City Music Hall – The Spectacular. Since then, I’ve had so many readers come up to me at book talks and signings and share their story as a patient, care partner, or relative, which has been truly rewarding,” Fiona says.
Fiona is looking forward to the upcoming book tour for The Stolen Queen. “I’m very grateful to be able to connect with readers all over the country. And I don’t regret any of the crazy turns that got me to this place…actress…journalist…columnist…each career switch brought me closer to what I really love…which is to write novels. I just didn’t know it yet.”
As featured in the January/February 2025 issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine