Celebrating Storytellers: Helen Hollick Features When Secrets Bloom

book series Blood of Kings, Heart of Shadows by Patricia Furstenberg set in medieval Transylvania

I’m thrilled to say that wonderful Helen Hollick – bestselling author, historian, and tireless supporter of fellow writers – featured my new book series Blood of Kings, Heart of Shadows with When Secrets Bloom as volume one, on her blog! Helen’s wevsite has long been a gathering place for readers and authors who love stories rooted in history, mystery, and imagination. Her generosity in championing new and established voices alike makes this feature especially meaningful.

You can read the full post on Helen’s blog here: Serious about a Series Spotlight: Today Patricia Furstenberg

04/11/202504/11/2025

Chasing Dracula at Tihuța Pass, Between Fiction and the Carpathians

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.

25/10/202525/10/2025

Sound Transylvanian Superstitions and Why We Still Believe in Old Magic

On the Night of Saint Andrew, on Wolves' Night #Im4Ro

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.

17/10/202517/10/2025

Transylvanian Witches: from Popular Healers to Hunted Outcasts

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.

17/09/202517/09/2025

How to Use Humor in Historical Fiction With Three Examples from When Secrets Bloom

fluffy dog walking on a bridge over water

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.