Heather Hiestand

Heather Hiestand writes historical romance with close attention to work, class, and the social worlds surrounding hotels and households. Lady Be Good is the third Grand Russe Hotel novel, set in London during the 1920s. The story pairs Olga Novikov, who works at the hotel after leaving Russia, with Douglas Childers, an intelligence officer whose investigation draws her into questions of loyalty and concealed identity. Lyrical Press, a Kensington imprint, released it in 2017. The Grand Russe sequence uses a luxury hotel as a meeting point for displaced Russian aristocrats, British officials, employees, and guests, giving personal relationships a wider historical frame. Hiestand has also written Victorian and Edwardian-set fiction, sometimes under the name Anh Leod for other romance work. In Lady Be Good, the period setting is carried by employment, migration, and postwar uncertainty as much as clothing or décor. Olga's position lets the novel consider reinvention when former status no longer guarantees security.