Today, I'm delighted to welcome Paul Rushworth-Brown to the #HistFicThursdays blog as part his Coffee Pot Book Club 's book tour. Today, meet Paul's new book The Lost Voices , and discover your next great read! Read on to enjoy an excerpt from this gripping book! First of all, let's meet the book... Some lives pass through history without leaving a trace. The Lost Voices is a work of historical fiction that brings to light those whose stories were never formally recorded—not because they lacked significance, but because their lives unfolded beyond the reach of power, authorship, and recognition. This is the story of ordinary people forced into extraordinary circumstances—individuals navigating a rigid social order shaped by obligation, fear, and quiet resistance. Here, survival depends as much on silence as on action, and choices are made not in moments of glory, but in private, under pressure, and with consequences rarely acknowledged. The novel explores how perso...
The other day at Crowvus HQ, we were discussing our favourite Jane Austen novels. Amazingly, for saying there were four of us with a positive opinion, each person had a different favourite. Jane Austen's books, of course, are not historical fiction, but books written contemporaneously to what is now an historical era.
But!
All the multitude of spinoffs which her books have invoked are historical fiction. Pride and Prejudice is not my favourite Austen story, nor my second or third, but I absolutely love the series Lost in Austen.
People hear the phrase "fan fiction" and immediately think lesser of it, but this is a little unfair. Fan fiction is not a new thing, it is how folk stories grew into legends, adventures becoming more daring with every telling. But what has changed is the way in which these stories are retold and the care which is now (quite rightly!) taken to preserve and protect the rights of the original author. In the case of Lost in Austen, this is not too difficult, as the author's works are both well out off copyright and also known to most people. The arrival of "Wuthering Heights" this year has also prompted some consideration over what a fine line can be drawn between "inspired-by" (therefore: fan fiction) and "true to text" adaptations.
To a certain extent, I suppose a lot of historical writers partake in fan fiction. We are, after all, fans of the stories of the past and we attempt to build them into something more. We (sometimes!) take characters from history and - without altering them from fact - weave our chosen exploits into their story. If we do not do this and stick solely to the facts, we are not writing historical fiction at all, but narrative nonfiction. When individuals such as Elizabeth Bennet, or Heathcliff, are as well known to us as real figures in history, is there really such a difference?
The truth is, we're all fans of someone. As writers, it makes perfect sense that we would want to share our hopes and dreams for that individual in the form of writing.
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