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...
Every week we settle down for a family games night. This week was a game called £GREED , which is a variation on the long established dice game 5000 . It's a favourite in this household, as it is a precarious balance between tactics and gambling. Caesar's famous remark that "the die is cast" as he crossed the Rubicon, shows that he knew and acknowledged this balance. Dice are amongst the oldest continually used form of gaming. They have a long history in every single continent, although not always as the cubes we recognise today. Early forms of dice were made from bone, wood, or stones such as agate or marble. They did not always show numbers, but could also be used for fortune telling, with pictures and letters inscribed on them. As a player of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay , I have always known that dice cannot be held at face value. They are regularly used in fantasy stories and situations to denote the power of luck and the ability to hold control over the realms of...