Patricia Furstenberg, Writer of Historical Fiction, Children's Books
Travel via Stories
This week brought news I have been quietly hoping for since my latest novel When Secrets Bloom first found its readers: a review from the Historical Novel Society. Penned by Williamaye Jones, the review is available on their website and is published in their print magazine Historical Novel Review HNR Issue 115 (February 2026).
Continue reading “When Secrets Bloom Reviewed by the Historical Novel Society”
There are places where silence does not mean absence, but command. Where words are measured, thoughts guarded, and obedience is not expected but sanctified. Yet history reminds us that even within the most rigid walls, the human spirit does not yield easily, as I discovered exploring a remarkable group of historical voices. So, when faith and conscience stand opposed, which one do we betray?
Continue reading “Sister Rosa’s Rebellion by Carolyn Hughes, the Weight of Silence”
There are histories that are recorded and histories that are felt. Not in dates or documents, but in the way the air shifts, the sense of a presence, the inexplicable certainty that a place remembers more than it reveals. So, when we walk through a landscape shaped by centuries, are we ever truly alone?
Continue reading “Ghost Encounters: The Lingering Spirits Of North Devon by Helen Hollick and Kathy Hollick”
“I step where I am needed… even when the ground burns beneath me.” I like this quote because it represents Kate Webber, the main character from When Secrets Bloom. Kate does not act because she believes she will win. She acts because not acting is unthinkable.
And her choice sets the course of everything that follows.
Continue reading “I step where I am needed, even when the ground burns beneath me – When Secrets Bloom”
Power rarely announces itself. It shimmers inviting admiration while concealing the cost of its making – much like silk under candlelight. But history and human nature also suggest otherwise.
Ahead of an anticipated collaborative anthology, I’ve enjoyed new historical fiction authors and discovered what’s hidden beneath quiet surfaces. But when beauty is crafted under constraint, does it remain beauty… or does it become testimony?
Continue reading “Hunting the Sun by Jean Gill – Beauty as Testimony”
There are cities in Transylvania that do not simply sit on the map, they remember. They carry the sediment of centuries like bark around an old trunk. Brașov, know as Corona or Kronstadt in medieval times, is one of those places. In When Secrets Bloom Brașov does appear only as a backdrop. It breathes. It resists. It watches.
Because to write about a place is to write against forgetting.
Continue reading “Real Places in Historical Fiction: Brașov in When Secrets Bloom”