Below is the complete list of Fiona Davis’ Point In Time books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Point In Time Books
About Point In Time
A Point in Time is a seven-story historical fiction collection built around moments when individual decisions intersect with larger forces of history. Although the collection is sometimes associated with Fiona Davis because of her contribution, A Wild Rose, it is a collaborative project rather than a series written by Davis alone. The other stories are by Thomas Keneally, Paula McLain, Esi Edugyan, Martha Hall Kelly, Olivia Hawker, and Jesmyn Ward, giving the collection a deliberately varied range of periods, settings, and narrative styles.
The organizing idea is less about one historical era than the instant when a life changes direction. Some stories place fictional characters alongside recognizable events; others draw upon less familiar histories involving slavery, imprisonment, political injustice, or communities that survived outside official records. Each work is short enough to stand independently, with no recurring protagonist or shared fictional universe connecting the seven installments.
Davis’s A Wild Rose is set in 1950s New York and makes characteristic use of an iconic building. Gloria Banderas, a celebrated concert pianist, suffers a mysterious ailment that prevents her from performing at Carnegie Hall. Her enforced pause introduces her to the community of artists who once lived and worked in studios above the famous concert venue. Surrounded by people who value artistic freedom more than conventional success, Gloria begins reconsidering both her career and marriage.
The story fits naturally within Davis’s broader fiction, where historic New York buildings often become gateways into overlooked communities and changing periods of the city’s history. Here Carnegie Hall is not merely the prestigious stage familiar to audiences; the apartments and studios hidden within the building reveal another artistic world populated by dancers, photographers, musicians, and other creative residents.
Elsewhere, the collection ranges far beyond New York. Esi Edugyan’s We Are Bone and Earth moves to West Africa in 1779, following Sisi, a young translator separated from her brother after both are captured. Jesmyn Ward’s Mother Swamp draws inspiration from communities established by people escaping slavery and follows a young woman tracing generations of ancestral survival through the Louisiana swamps.
Olivia Hawker’s Landing turns to the Apollo 11 era through a NASA engineer whose expertise in anticipating technical failures offers little help with the uncertainty of his own marriage. Martha Hall Kelly’s Naomi’s Gift reaches into the history of Ravensbrück concentration camp through letters revealing women who risked themselves to protect a baby. Paula McLain’s Ash Wednesday and Thomas Keneally’s Alison’s Conviction approach other historical turning points through personal relationships and resistance to forces larger than the individual.
The breadth of periods prevents A Point in Time from developing the continuity expected of a conventional historical series. Its cohesion instead comes from cause and consequence. A private choice, an unexpected encounter, an act of courage, or a moment of refusal can divide a life into what existed before and what becomes possible afterward.
For readers of Fiona Davis, the collection is therefore best understood as a multi-author anthology containing one Davis story rather than another branch of her interconnected bibliography. A Wild Rose carries her familiar fascination with New York architecture and hidden history, while the surrounding stories broaden the concept across continents and centuries. Together, the seven works form a compact exploration of history at human scale: not simply the events later recorded in textbooks, but the decisions made by people living through them.