Crowvus Book Blog

I was thrilled to be asked to share a story for the Historical Writers Forum's Alternate Endings  anthology. This post is a little insight into the historical figures of my story, Vercingetorix's Virgin , and why I changed what I did... A Good Death: The Stubborn Dictator and The Headstrong King Memento Mori - Remember Death (This is actually in Nuremberg, but suited my purpose well!) Death is an inevitability. There is nothing which levels the playing-field more than the acknowledgement that everyone must die. All of humanity, whether kings or serfs, will end their days in death. Throughout history, across regions and religions, this has been a factor which has played upon the minds of mankind. Unsurprisingly, this has given rise to the notion of a "Good Death". The Vikings knew they could enter Valhalla if they died in battle, Christians knew they would be counted amongst the saints if they suffered martyrdom. But if there is a good death, there must also be a bad ...

  This week, I've been delving back into Ancient Rome, so this song was October's logical choice for a Horrible Histories blog. I'm so excited about the release of Alternate Endings , a collection of eight short stories from different historical writers. Each one (as the title suggests!) picked an event to change in history. Mine was the sparing of Vercingetorix's life. So Julius Caesar has been at the forefront of my mind! But Crassus was already dead by the time my story was set. In fact, his death triggered the collapse of that First Triumvirate. Unlike the later triumvirates, theirs was established solely to further their own ends individually. As the centuries turned, a certain hierarchy was established within each set of three, the geography reflecting this, but Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey were all as close to equal as they could be. Despite the appearance in the video, however, they all equally disliked one another. There was a circle of mistrust amongst them and...

Today's #HistFicThursdays post comes from another fabulous member of the Historical Writers Forum , Karen Heenan. Welcome to the world of Songbird  her fantastic Tudor book. Here's how it all began... The Inspiration Behind Songbird (and The Tudor Court Series) Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein I discovered the Tudors at a young age. My mom was watching the BBC’s Six Wives of Henry VIII (the 1970 series, which the US got in 1972) and I ended up getting sucked into the program. Mom only wanted to watch through the Anne Boleyn episode, because she always had sympathy for the “other woman” in stories, but I insisted, at the age of seven, that we watch the whole thing. And that was it. Tudors for life. Although I’d always written, it never occurred to me to write historical fiction, much less in the era I was most passionate about. This was possibly because there were so many books about Henry and Anne and the rest that I didn’t feel I had anything new to say on the topic. It also didn’...