Alyson Richman Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Alyson Richman
Alyson Richman is a #1 international bestselling and a USA Today Bestselling author of several historical novels.

She graduated from Wellesley College in 1994 with a degree in art history and Japanese studies, and received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Alyson herself is an accomplished painter and her novels combine her deep love of travel, historical research, and art.

Alyson’s novels have been published in twenty-five languages and have reached the bestseller lists abroad and in the United States.

“The Mask Carver’s Son” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2000. 1890. Yamamoto Kiyoki is a Japanese art student, dreaming about studying in Paris with the vibrant and inspiring Impressionist painters.

Yamamoto Ryusei is Kiyoki’s dad. Ryusei’s art, carving these intricate masks for traditional Japanese theater, has been his refuge from the loneliness since his beloved wife’s death, and he’s revered as the most inspired artist of his kind. He expects his one son to honor the traditions of his country and his family, and to not be seduced by the Western ideas of what’s beautiful. Ryusei hopes that Kiyoki is going to follow his own distinguished career, creating these masks which will become the family’s crowning achievement.

However what’s a dad to do when his son’s path isn’t what he had planned? And how can a son possibly honor his dad, and yet fulfill his own destiny?

“The Rhythm of Memory” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2004. Octavio Riberio loves beauty, truth, literature, and above all else: Salome, his wife. As a student in Chile, he courted Salome with the words of the great poets, and she wound up falling in love with his uncompromising passion and fierce intelligence. Then this sudden coup brings a vicious military dictatorship into power, and puts anybody that resists it in grave danger.

Salome begs Octavio to put his family’s safety first, instead of speak out against this new regime. After he refuses, it is Salome that winds up paying the price.

Octavio, belatedly awake to the reality of this danger, finds some political asylum for his family in Sweden. However for Salome, the path back to love is fraught with some painful secrets, as well as the knowledge that they can never return home again.

“The Last Van Gogh” is the third stand alone novel and was released in 2006. Summer in 1890. Van Gogh shows up at Auvers-sur-Oise, this bucolic French village which lures city artists into the country. It’s here that Maurguerite Gachet, age twenty, has grown up, attending to her brother and dad since her mom died. And it’s here that Vincent Van Gogh is going to spend his final summer, under Doctor Gachet’s care. Dr. Gachet is a homeopathic doctor, dilettante painter, and collector.

In Van Gogh’s last days, he will create more than 70 paintings, two of which are portraits of Marguerite Gachet. However little does he know just yet that, as he captures Marguerite and her garden on the canvas, he’ll also capture her heart too.

Both a historical novel and a love story, this novel recreates the final months of his life, as well as the tragic relationship between one young girl that brims with hope and an artist that teeters on despair.

“The Lost Wife” is the fourth stand alone novel and was released in 2011. A rapturous novel of first love in a time of war. Right there on her forearm, next to that small brown birthmark, were six tattooed numbers. He asked, while trembling, if she remembered him. She took another look at him, as if giving bone and weight to a ghost. He told Lenka, that he was her husband, Josef.

During the final moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, then a young art student, falls in love with Josef. They get married, but soon, like quite a few others, they’re ripped apart by the currents of war. In America, Josef becomes a successful obstetrician and raises a family, even though he never forgets the wife that he believes died in the camps.

However in the Nazi ghetto of Terezin (and later on in Auschwitz) Lenka’s survived, relying on her abilities as an artist and the memories of a husband that she believes she’ll never see again. Now, many decades later, one unexpected encounter in New York brings Josef and Lenka back together. From the comfort of life in Prague before the occupation to the horrors of Nazi Europe, this novel explores the endurance of first love, our capacity to remember, and the resilience of the human spirit.

“The Garden of Letters” is the fifth stand alone novel and was released in 2014. Set against a rich backdrop of WWII Italy and written with dazzling prose, this novel captures the suspense, hope, and romance of this uncertain era, in an epic intertwining tale about great tragedy, first love, and spectacular bravery.

Portofino, Italy in 1943. One young woman steps off of some boat in a scenic coastal village. Even though she knows how to vanish in a crowd, Elodie is much too horrified too slip past the German officers as she carries her poorly forged identity papers. She’s frozen in place until this man she has never met before in her life claims he knows her. Elodie, in desperate need of shelter, follows the guy back to his home on the cliffs of Portofino.

Just months before, Elodie Bertolotti was a cello prodigy in Verona, unconcerned with world events. However once Mussolini’s Fascist regime strikes her family, she’s drawn into the burgeoning resistance movement by Luca, an impassioned, young bookseller. While the occupation is looming, she finds that her special musical talents, and her bravery, have the power to save lives.

Young Doctor Angelo Rosselli, in Portofino, gives this exhausted and afraid woman sanctuary. He’s a man with some painful secrets of his own, haunted by remorse and guilt. However Elodie’s arrival has the power to awaken this sense of joy and hope which Angelo had believed was lost to him forever.