mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Mother. 🖋Writer. Former MD. Flâneuse interested historical fiction, folklore, legends, myths, castles.🏰 Romanian living in South Africa.
Medieval Women and the startling laws they lived by in the Romanian Lands https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/medieval-women-haunted-by-startling-laws-in-the-romanian-lands/
Marriage, inheritance or violence, there was a law for any stage of a woman's life.
#WomensHistoryMonth #HistoryMatters #Romania #Transylvania #Moldavia #WomensRightsMatter
New Book Announcement:
COURAGE: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope
https://mybook.to/COURAGE-Anthology
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision to face it.
15 #HistoricalFiction #shortstories
#preorder now
Out 17 JUNE
When the world you know begins to fade, do you fight to preserve it… or find the courage to begin again?
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/exsilium-by-alison-morton-when-civilisations-fray/
History is often written by those in power but shaped, quietly and irrevocably, by those who stand close enough to witness, and brave enough to remember. Is history defined by those who rule… or by those who bear witness? #HistoricalFiction #BookLove #weekendreads
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/the-queens-scribe-by-amy-maroney-ink-and-power/
COVER REVEAL - Courage: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope, a historical fiction anthology. 15 lives drawn from across time, each poised at the brink of fear. They endure. They remain.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/new-book-announcement-courage-tales-of-history-mystery-and-hope/
So excited to share:
COVER REVEAL - NEW ANTHOLOGY COMING SOON!
♡◇•°☆☆☆☆☆°◇♡
COURAGE - Tales of History, Mystery and Hope
♡◇•°☆☆☆☆☆•◇♡
"Courage is not the absence of fear – it is the decision to face it."
https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/2026/05/cover-reveal-new-anthology-coming-soon.html
@HelenHollick@mastodonapp.uk
Read my Too Far Standing Still by Lisette Brodey @lisettebrodey.bsky.social #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/too-far-standing-still-by-lisette-brodey-bookreview-tuesdaybookblog/#comment-18123
Most people know December 1 as Romania’s National Day. Fewer know the story behind it; it is one of war, collapse, hope, but mostly of the determined will of ordinary people.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/celebrating-1-december-romanias-day/
Sister Rosa’s Rebellion by Carolyn Hughes, the Weight of Silence #MedievalFiction #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/sister-rosas-rebellion-by-carolyn-hughes-the-weight-of-silence/
Laura Lyndhurst’s FATAL, new release on Amazon Contemporary Urban Fiction, is a tense, morally complex contemporary thriller set in modern suburban England.
🏰 A #medieval #Monday on my blog:
Real Places in Historical Fiction: Brașov in When Secrets Bloom
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/real-places-in-historical-fiction-brasov-in-when-secrets-bloom/
When survival demands transformation, when does necessity become something else entirely?
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #BookReview "The novel’s power comes from its precision: the daily frictions of a woman whose skill makes her valuable and whose gender makes her dangerous."
http://Mybook.to/wsb
#BookLove #HistoricalFiction #Transylvania #weekendreads #Bookx
Venture through the gates of ages, dare to time-travel back in time. Choose one book, a sure journey to one of 18 cities where history still breathes.
Long before the 1st of March, red and white begin to gather in my thoughts. On Mărțișor day those twin threads appear— insistent, disarmingly simple. A charm no heavier than the season’s first breath. Why?
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/why-red-and-white-became-the-colors-of-martisor-on-march-1st/
Blood binds. Silence corrodes. In #WhenSecretsBloom family love is tested by buried truths, inherited guilt, and the price of keeping peace. Some legacies don’t fade—they bloom.
http://Mybook.to/wsb
Review of When Secrets Bloom by the Historical Novel Society: "a compelling guide through a world where women’s authority is constantly undermined." Historical Novel Review HNR Issue 115, February 2026.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/when-secrets-bloom-reviewed-by-the-historical-novel-society/
When the world is remade around us, do we shape it in return… or are we shaped beyond recognition? #BookLove #BookReview #weekendreads #bookrecommendations
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/ascent-a-story-of-danger-adversity-and-love-by-cathie-dunn/
In "When Secrets Bloom" these fragments came first. This series of book quotes gathers those glimpses. A book quotes series.
A thoughtful, new #review from Bonnie:
Indie Spotlight: Book Review of When Secrets Bloom by Patricia Furstenberg https://bonniereadsandwrites.com/2025/11/14/indie-spotlight-book-review-of-when-secrets-bloom-by-patricia-furstenberg/
#BookRecommendation #readingovertheweekend #HistoricalFiction #bookseries
A Proven Historical Pressure Cooker: Marriage as Surveillance
In fifteenth-century Transylvania, marriage was not a private affair. It was a public instrument. A legal mechanism. A way of (finally) being seen. At a price no bride ever bargained for.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/a-proven-historical-pressure-cooker-marriage-as-surveillance/
Some paths, we chose. Others we step on because there is no one else left to walk them. And they can't be abandoned. #bookquote #historicalfiction When Secrets Bloom
Some cities in Transylvania don’t just sit on the map—they remember, and Brașov, once Kronstadt, is one of them; in When Secrets Bloom is a backdrop that breathes and watches.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/real-places-in-historical-fiction-brasov-in-when-secrets-bloom/
In GHOST The Lingering Spirits Of North Devon , mother and daughter share their personal experiences, dispelling the belief that spirits are to be feared. #Devon #GhostStories #BookLovers #weekendreads
There are truths history rarely writes plainly about. Skill, in the wrong hands, becomes suspicion. And knowledge, instead of opening doors, invites them to close.
Too Far Standing Still is the third fast-paced, character-driven psychological drama / suspense novel set in New York City, written by talented Lisette Brodey.
The River Treasure and One Map that Shouldn’t Exist
From Roman road maps to Dacia’s gold-rich, legend-laden hills, we look at the quiet keepers of memory when even empires cracked and crumbled around them.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/the-river-treasure-and-one-map-that-shouldnt-exist/
"A richly woven, quietly incendiary novel that treats history not as backdrop but as pressure. Patricia Furstenberg’s # WhenSecretsBloom enters 1463 Transylvania with the confidence of a writer who knows the terrain—political, cultural, spiritual."
Mybook.to/wsb
Hunting the Sun by Jean Gill - Beauty as Testimony. #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog #NorseFiction
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/hunting-the-sun-by-jean-gill-beauty-as-testimony/
This Advent Calendar opens doors into Romania’s & world's winter legends and memories. Each day reveals a fragment of snow-lit history, carols and traditions.
Pre-Order TODAY. This anthology gathers an extraordinary fellowship of historical storytellers, each lending their voice to a different century, a different trial. OUT 17 June.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/courage-tales-of-history-mystery-and-hope-pre-order-now/
✨️Woo-hoo! #ComingSoon:
COURAGE: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope
Pre-order May 25
🗓 Out June 25
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to face it.
Fifteen lives. Fifteen moments at the edge of fear. None turn back.
"A richly woven, quietly incendiary novel that treats history not as backdrop but as pressure. Patricia Furstenberg’s # WhenSecretsBloom enters 1463 Transylvania with the confidence of a writer who knows the terrain—political, cultural, spiritual."
Mybook.to/wsb
Among the treasures uncovered in the wake of the Roman advance lay the great Dacian hoards, among them the famed Koson treasure. Back in Dacia the mountains remember them still.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/the-gold-beneath-the-beeches-a-dacian-treasure-of-king-koson/
🕯When Secrets Bloom 📘New 5⭐️#BookReview
"The novel is at its sharpest in the way it handles “the secret.” Every major character carries one... But Furstenberg never reduces these secrets to plot twists. They are social currency."
http://Mybook.to/wsb
🍀 🐠 Have a bite of raw fish today to have #goodluck fishing all year long! A Romanian tradition for #StPatrickDay
#17March coincides with Alexii in Romania (who wouldn't shut the bug box so the creeters spread all over world!)
Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings
NEW ANTHOLOGY COMING SOON!
`~°•○☆○•°~`
COURAGE: Tales of History, Mystery and Hope
`~°•○☆○•°~`
https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/?spref=tw
If history forgets, who remembers? The novel When Secrets Bloom grew from that question and from the silences, symbols, and buried lives that only historical fiction can recover.
I am excited to serve as a volunteer judge for the 2026 History Through Fiction Short Story Contest. Submissions open June 15 - August 15. For historical fiction writers.
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/announcing-2026-history-through-fiction-short-story-contest/
On my blog, a bit of history and tradition for #1stMarch, day of Marţişor in Romania
https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/1-march-martisor-tradition-symbolism-romania/