Book of the Month, Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope

There are books that feel as though they have been waiting for the right moment to be written. Such is Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope. 

In her introduction Lorna Fergusson does not simply present a collection of historical fiction; she opens a threshold into something  unsettling and human: the private moment when fear and decision stand face to face, and only one is allowed to remain.

Her introduction frames courage not as triumph, but as recognition: of vulnerability, of consequence, of the quiet inner reckoning that precedes every irreversible choice.

The lion has long stood as a symbol of courage, loyalty, and hope. A creature imagined as unflinching, sovereign over fear itself. Yet the deeper truth this collection leans toward is more fragile, more intimate.

True courage does not always roar.

It waits.

It waits in the marrow of hesitation, in the breath held too long, in the instant before retreat becomes surrender. It is not the absence of fear, but the decision—often unbearable—to move through it anyway.

And so the stories gathered here do not glorify the loud moments of history, but the quieter fractures beneath them. The unnoticed turning points where ordinary lives are bent, tested, and sometimes remade entirely by the pressure of survival.

Across empires, plagues, wars, and centuries that refuse to soften their edges, these narratives return again and again to the same fragile question:

What does it cost to remain standing?

And what is discovered in that cost?

These powerful and often deeply emotional stories follow men, women, and children as they face profound adversity. They endure, resist, flee, remain, and rebuild. They cling to hope when it becomes the only thing still within reach, and they find the courage to change their lives forever.

Exceptional? Yes. 

And deeply human.

Join them as they uncover extraordinary strength and emerge, in their own way, lion-hearted.

The Stories – in appearance order: (collated by Helen Hollick)

THE SENTRY by Alison Morton
Roman province of Noricum, AD 395
When danger strikes and you are on your own with only fear as a companion

THE SAXON by Derek Birks
Southern Britain, the frontier between the Belgae and the Atrebates. AD 471
When escape means more than just running for your life

THE PHOENIX by Marian L Thorpe
Ésparias, a fictional country bordering the western sea circa AD 900
A mother’s dilemma? To keep them safe – or let them go?

SIFLEDE by Judith Arnopp
London, October 1066
When the Normans come, Southwark’s residents need to fight, flee, hide or die

DAISY CHAIN by Annie Whitehead
England, 1141
A mother’s love. A mother’s grief

STEPPING BETWEEN by Anna Belfrage
Ludlow Castle, England, 1308
When all you can do is to endure

CONFRONTING PLAGUE by Carolyn Hughes
England, 1361
When courage must survive in the face of history’s cruellest plague

KATE’S LETTER by Patricia Furstenberg
Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, 1478
One letter, sealed in dragon’s wax

THE PORTRAIT’S SECRET by Amy Maroney
Paris, 1536
When a woman holds a secret, does she keep it, or share it?

LEGACY by Jean Gill
Tudor England, 1558
When a man loses everything, what is his legacy?

A TALETELLER’S TALE by Helen Hollick
Somewhere in the Caribbean, 1709
When the only sound is the song of the sea, do you listen? Or do you drown in the embrace of a mermaid?

THE GATE by Elizabeth St.John
London, 1900
When courage costs everything

DARKNESS RISING by Cathie Dunn
Venezia, June 1923
Can the mystery of a secluded island, and a murder, be solved before time runs out?

A SACK OF POTATOES by Antoine Vanner
Groenhorst, outskirts of Amersvoort, The Netherlands, November 11th, 1954
Courage meant survival for many – but others relied on greed

GRUMPY OLD GRANDFATHER by Kathy Hollick-Bater
Anywhere, Present-day
It takes courage to fight the memory of fear

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To contribute to a collection such as this is to step into a shared landscape of human endurance, where history is not merely observed but felt through the grain of individual lives.

My own story, Kate’s Letter, set in Transylvania in 1478, begins not with armies or declarations, but with something far smaller and infinitely more dangerous: a sealed message. Waxed shut. Silent. Waiting.

Because sometimes history turns not on the movement of kingdoms, but on what one person chooses to do when a letter arrives that should never have been opened.

And that, perhaps, is where courage most often lives.