Patricia Furstenberg, Writer of Historical Fiction, Children's Books
Travel via Stories
Chasing Dracula at Tihuța Pass, one Saint Andrew’s Eve when the wolves are said to speak and the living seal their doors with garlic, I strode that winding road. Between Fiction and the Carpathians was born there, where the veil thins and the line between myth and memory fades.
Continue reading “Chasing Dracula at Tihuța Pass, Between Fiction and the Carpathians”
On All Saints’ Night, when the veil between the living and the dead grows thin, I return through story to my Transylvanian roots. The Night of Returning Souls, written for Romania Insider is my take on the folklore and ghostly legends that haunt October.
Continue reading “The Night of Returning Souls, It’s All Saints’ Night”
When it comes to superstitions, especially Transylvanian superstitions, even the most rational among us have whispered “touch wood” or avoided walking under a ladder. I know I have. Such old magic and weird beliefs have long offered humans a sense of control over a world that often feels cruelly unpredictable.
Superstitions are more than quirky cultural relics; they are the soul’s attempt to impose meaning on chaos. This is evident in Romania, particularly Transylvania, where the supernatural and the sacred have long shared the same threshold. While the Western world flinches at black cats and the number 13, in Transylvania we count our MANY fears differently.
Continue reading “Sound Transylvanian Superstitions and Why We Still Believe in Old Magic”
In the frost-bitten winters of 15th-century Transylvania the line between savior and sorceress could be drawn by a whisper. A woman might spend her days easing childbirth pains, binding wounds, or coaxing fevered children back from death only to face the stake by nightfall, accused of witchcraft.
This was the brutal paradox faced by countless women across medieval Europe and perhaps nowhere was it more stark than in the fortified towns of Transylvania, where Saxon, Vlach, Magyar, and Jewish communities shared the safety of walls, but not always trust. Here, a woman’s skill could make her indispensable and dangerous in equal measure.
Continue reading “Transylvanian Witches: from Popular Healers to Hunted Outcasts”
While I was writing When Secrets Bloom I fell in love with humor that’s cleverly used in historical fiction.
Humor has always been part of survival. In the harshest of times (for me that would be my childhood and teen years in communist Romania), wit becomes both shield and sword, a way to endure the unendurable. As one of my characters puts it:
‘You need to be more careful, Mo,’ she murmured, not unkindly. ‘This world’s got less mercy than a goose at Michaelmas—and you’re walking around like stuffing.‘
That kind of humor doesn’t trivialize fear. It grounds it. It makes emotion believable, action lifelike, and humanizes history. In this post I’ll share three moments from When Secrets Bloom where I deliberately used humor to deepen character, reveal cultural identity, and invite readers closer to the story.
Continue reading “How to Use Humor in Historical Fiction With Three Examples from When Secrets Bloom”