Patricia Furstenberg, Writer of Historical Fiction, Children's Books
Travel via Stories
“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”
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”
There are truths history rarely writes plainly about. Skill, in the wrong hands — or rather in the wrong body — becomes suspicion. And knowledge, instead of opening doors, invites them to close.
Continue reading “Yet for all my knowledge I was still only a woman. And that was my crime. #bookquote”
Some stories are not built all at once. They gather in fragments. A line that refuses to loosen its grip. An image formed at the edge of thought. A truth that waits until it’s the right time to be released.
In When Secrets Bloom these fragments came first. This series of book quotes gathers those glimpses.
Continue reading “Even truth becomes blind when it refuses to look – When Secrets Bloom”
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”