Patricia Furstenberg, Writer of Historical Fiction, Children's Books
Travel via Stories
“I trust scars more than smiles.” At first, it sounds like the kind of sentence one should not agree with: “I trust scars more than smiles. Yours told me more than any oath ever could.” (When Secrets Bloom)
Continue reading ““I trust scars more than smiles.” #BookQuote When Secrets Bloom”
There are courts that glitter and courts that conceal. In the long shadow of Restoration England, the line between the two grows dangerously thin. Beneath silk and ceremony, beneath measured speech and carefully maintained appearances, the past does not remain buried. It waits. But when truth threatens the stability of power, is it allowed to emerge fully… or only tolerated in fragments?
Elizabeth St John lends her voice to our historical fiction anthology Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope.
Continue reading “The King’s Intelligencer by Elizabeth St John: Beneath Velvet and Bone”
History is not forged in glory. It is hammered into shape through mud, hunger, and the stubborn refusal to yield even when reason demands it. But, when the world demands you choose a side, what part of yourself are you willing to lose?
Within our historical fiction anthology Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope Derek Birks includes an evocative story.
Continue reading “Rebel Sword by Derek Birks, When Choosing Means Losing”
Long before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula there was Vlad the Impaler: voivode of Wallachia, enemy of the Ottomans, ruler feared as much for his punishments as for his political cunning.
This is the Vlad who moves through the pages of When Secrets Bloom and Kate’s Letter, included in the Courage Anthology out 17 JUNE. Vlad the man, consumed by passions and hidden fears—not as a figure of legend already swallowed by bats and myth. A man still anchored in the hard geography of his own century.
Continue reading “Vlad the Impaler and How Dracula’s Epic Shadow Was Made”
There is something haunting about an old letter.
While writing Kate’s Letter for the anthology Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope (OUT JUNE 17), I found myself drawn not only to the emotions within the letter, but to the physical reality of medieval correspondence itself. How did people protect private messages before envelopes existed? What did secrecy look like in an age of spies, kingdoms, and fragile loyalties?
Continue reading “What Did Medieval Epistles Really Look Like? And Kate’s Surprise Letter”