I am Dr. Barbara, a historian 

Aside from having studied history, having worked both in academia and the publishing world, this what shapes my work. 

* I have photographic memory. 

* I read really, really fast. A 700-page novel? I can read it in 8 hours. 

* I read over 300 books per year (that’s for pleasure, not for work [Book EMOJI] ). 

* Often, I can recite entire passages of letters or diaries long after a project has been submitted. 

 

* I was raised by a history nerd father & a savvy librarian (hi, Mama!). 

* My grandparents taught me how to decipher old, spidery handwriting by the age of 7. 

* At age 16, I was one of the first students to request ‘internet lessons’ at my school. A group of 20 teens waited in front of 1 (!) computer until we were allowed to type 1 (!) question into Altavista or Fireball (millennials, these were the search engines before Google was invented). 


 

As a historical advisor, I’ve researched for authors who write non-fiction and novels.

 

Their books have been published with Random House USA, Random House Germany, Picador, AmazonCrossing, Hachette USA, Hachette Australia, Vintage Books Australia, Lübbe, adeo, bene, DroemerKnaur, Blanvalet, Blessing, Piper, Ullstein, Sourcebooks UK, Sphere UK and LittleBrown UK.

Publishing expert Jane Friedman wrote about me:
“If you write historical novels and need help finding the best resources, here’s your woman.” 

* For each research project, I read at least 80 books. Often many, many more. 📖  

* If I go into research ‘beast mode’, I can plough through 100-110 databases or websites per hour. 

* Filtering LOADS of information and finding a certain piece of it is my über special talent.