Celebrate with me the publication day of The Book That Should Have Been Lost !
1450: Walk beside the young Vlad Dracula and Kate Webber (When Secrets Bloom) from Roman Fortress to Kronstadt before history became legend.
The Book That Should Have Been Lost: Some books tell history. One remembers the truth.
Fifteen-year-old Kate longs for a place where she can simply be herself. When the exiled Vlad Dracula rescues her from child smugglers, she becomes the unlikely guardian of a mysterious manuscript. Pursued across medieval Transylvania by those determined to possess it, Kate must choose between the life others have planned for her and the path she longs to claim as her own.
You know ate and you do know this magic book from When Secrets Bloom…
Short historical note about Vlad Dracula:
One of the reasons I wanted to write The Book That Should Have Been Lost is that history leaves us with a fascinating silence concerning at least five years from Vlad Dracula’s youth.
We know that after Vlad Dracula’s brief first reign as Voivode of Wallachia in 1448, he sought refuge at the court of Bogdan II of Moldavia, who was likely his maternal uncle. Many historians believe Vlad’s mother Eupraxia of Moldavia, also historically referred to as Princess Cneajna) was Bogdan’s sister, making Stephen the Great Vlad’s cousin.
We also know that Vlad fought alongside Bogdan II and young Stephen (Stefan cel Mare) during the Battle of Crasna in 1450.
Other than that, however, the historical record grows frustratingly quiet.
We do know Vlad was eventually forced to leave the Moldavian court before reclaiming the Wallachian throne in 1456. He probably lived in Transylvania.
These years missing from the archives—when Vlad would have trained, lived, and fought others’ battles as well as following his dream—offered me the perfect space for fiction to meet history. The Book That Should Have Been Lost AND the forthcoming BOOK 3 in the sage imagine one possible story hidden within those lost pages of the past.
Published today!
It is only 99c 99p. Click the image to go to your preferred Amazon store:
Congratulations on your new book. It sounds really intriguing and interesting and the history seems fascinating.
Thank you so much, Thomas. I really enjoyed writing it. It was too much of a side-story to include it in Book 3 of this saga. I am so happy it’s out now!!! 🙂
Those missing years in Vlad’s life are such a good space for a story. There’s enough history to ground it, but still plenty of room to imagine what might have happened.
Exactly. The years between Vlad Dracula’s first and second reign are a particularly intriguing historical gap. After losing Wallachia, Vlad spent time in Moldavia, where he was connected with Bogdan II and the young Stephen (the Great), before circumstances forced him onward into Transylvania… We know some of the political movements and major events around him, but much less about his day-to-day life, relationships, and experiences during those years. That gives historical fiction a wonderful space to explore. I imagine the human story that could have unfolded between documented events.