Crowvus Book Blog

 Happy New Year, Readers! Because we're in a new year, I'm trying to be super-organised. There are so many things going on, I have to keep tabs on everything! So here's what is planned... This year for #HistFicThursdays, I am opening up a space every month for a fellow Historical Fiction writer to share a guest post. This opportunity is open on a first-come-first-serve basis, so please get in touch if you are interested in having a guest post. Each month, there will also be a free historical short story or poem, across a broad range of times and genres. There'll be one or two book tour posts, too, and I'm also aiming to write a post about the inspirations for aspects of different books. So, if it all goes according to plan, it will be a very busy year of #HistFicThursdays! To start off the inspirational posts, here's a quick introduction to my new release. It's not Historical Fiction, but it is all about the inspiration for the story I wrote in NaNoWriMo las...

      Review My experience of short stories is more in writing them than in reading them, although some I have read and enjoyed have stayed with me for a long time. In almost every instance, I have read a book of short stories by a specific author (Neil Gaiman's excellent offerings on this spring to mind) and, in that case, it is more akin to reading a novel. By contrast, this is a book which brings together eight different authors, who provide their own unique perspectives and areas of expertise. The first thing I noticed about them as a list is that they are mostly female, with only one male author included. This is reflected in many of the stories, which take a very female perspective.  The concept of alternate history is one I can definitely buy into. As an author, I very nearly indulged in it myself when I was writing a historical novel and the actual history was just too sad. We all engage in alternate history on a nearly-daily basis too, thinking about the pat...

 It's been quite a year! I'm delighted to have shared a post with you all on every Thursday of 2022 on the theme of Historical Fiction. I've loved spreading the word about some of the fantastic historical writers (as in writers of history!), shared a few ideas of my own, and looked at a few of the Horrible Histories songs along the way. While #HistFicThursdays will be continuing into the new year, this will be my last Horrible Histories blog (but take a look at some of the other songs which I didn't get around to, as well, because they are brilliant, too!). And it had to be this one... The great thing about historical fiction, is that it doesn't matter what period you want to write, each one of them offers something new to the world we live in today. Whether you're delving back into prehistory where this song starts, or just heading back to the World Wars where it finishes, there were major discoveries and personal stories along the way. With so much pull back i...

This week's curator on the @WeeklyScribe account is E.L. Lyons ( @Lyons_Pen ), author of  Starlight Jewel . Here is her writing advice on drawing from history to incorporate into fantasy... When writing fantasy, the magic system always seems to be at the forefront of attention. Wands and dragons and spells are exciting. But when writing epic fantasy, where you’re creating a whole world different from ours, history is essential to grounding that magic and those cultures to make them seem real. If the history doesn’t feel real, or the world seems like it’s just starting, it gives the entire environment an inauthentic feeling.  Contrast this with the terrible E word… Exposition. The one thing that no fantasy author wants to be accused of. You have to craft your world’s history, lace it with magic, and then you can’t even tell your reader about it. But you also have to make sure they know it’s there.  I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons about this delicate balance with Starli...

It's #HistFicThursdays, and I'm so excited to be sharing a guest post from  Justin Newland ,   as part of his  Coffee Pot Book Club  tour. Find out all about how China inspired Justin's fantastic book  The Old Dragon's Head . But first, let's meet the book... Blurb The Great Wall of China may be constructed of stone and packed earth, but it is home to a supernatural beast – the Old Dragon. Both wall and dragon protect China’s northern borders from Mongol incursion. Just beyond the fortress of Shanhaiguan, the far eastern end of the wall protrudes into the Bohai Sea – that’s the Old Dragon’s Head. Bolin, a young man working on the Old Dragon’s Head, suffers visions of ghosts. The local seer suspects that he has yin-yang eyes and other supernatural gifts. Bolin’s fief lord, the Prince of Yan, rebels against his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor. In the bitter war of succession, the Mongols hold the balance of power. While the victor might win the battle on earth, C...

Today for the #HistFicThursdays blog, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Angela Sims. Her book,  The Rose of Florence , is being published next year, and here Angela shares the inspiration the city has given her. Read on to discover the world of the Renaissance in what was arguably its birthplace... The priest raised the host, and the communion bell rang through the cathedral… Anyone who has visited Florence, the capital city of the Tuscan region of Italy, will know that it is teeming…teeming with tourists and teeming with history. Some years ago, I was one of those tourists (I now consider myself a regular visitor!), and even while jostling with crowds, you can’t fail to be moved by the city, the architecture, the art and the stories that surround you.  One of the stories that captured my imagination was of the murder in the cathedral, The Pazzi Conspiracy. At the time of this event (1478), Florence was a republic, with the Medici family holding the majority of power....

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’...

It's #HistFicThursdays, and I'm so excited to be sharing a guest post from  Siobhan Daiko ,   as part of her  Coffee Pot Book Club  tour. Find out all about Siobhan's research for her fantastic book  The Girl from Bologna  and the creation of that fantastic tagline: "the past is never past". But first, let's meet the book.. Blurb Bologna, Italy, 1944, and the streets are crawling with German soldiers. Nineteen-year-old Leila Venturi is shocked into joining the Resistance after her beloved best friend Rebecca, the daughter of a prominent Jewish businessman, is ruthlessly deported to a concentration camp. In February 1981, exchange student Rhiannon Hughes arrives in Bologna to study at the university. There, she rents a room from Leila, who is now middle-aged and infirm. Leila’s nephew, Gianluca, offers to show Rhiannon around but Leila warns her off him. Soon Rhiannon finds herself being drawn into a web of intrigue. What is Gianluca’s interest in a far...

It's #HistFicThursdays again, and this week I'm delighted to be sharing a guest post from  Renee Yancy ,   as part of her  Coffee Pot Book Club  tour. A little over 100 years later, we are once more in a pandemic. Find out about the inspiration and backdrop Renee used for More Precious Than Gold  in her guest post below. But first, let's meet the book.. Blurb A young woman refuses to become a pawn in her grandmother’s revenge scheme and forgoes a life of wealth and royalty to pursue a nursing career as America enters WWI and the Pandemic Flu of 1918 wreaks havoc in New York City. More Precious Than Gold  is available via Amazon UK - Amazon US - Amazon CA - Barnes & Noble - Kobo - Apple Books Guest Post The Pandemic Flu of 1918 affected not just the lives of Bellevue nurses but nearly the entire world. The administration of Bellevue Hospital gave their student nurses the option of going home while the deadly Pandemic Flu of 1918 raged through New Yo...

Today's #HistFicThursdays blog is a little bit different. The Horrible Histories songs I've shared so far have all been about specific people. Today, we're looking a little bit broader... Meet the Vikings:  I have to say, the song above is my favourite Horrible Histories song! Both the songs in today's blog are my sort of music, even though they're not a lot like each other. But the music matches the theme and - without talking too much about the genius of the musicianship (my day job coming into play here) - these two songs show two very different sides of the Viking impact on Britain. The song above is what we are led to believe all Vikings were like. A couple of years ago, on a return from my sister's book launch in North Lincolnshire, we visited Lindisfarne. It is commercialised now, not a great deal like the Holy Island the monks had established there (although the earliest reference to this name appears to have been some 200 years after the Viking raid). B...

 Today it is my absolute pleasure to share with you Samantha Wilcoxson's new release, But One Life: The Story of Nathan Hale . I have to admit, being from this side of the pond, Nathan Hale is not a name I was familiar with, but I have loved sharing in Samantha's posts in the lead-up to the launch and feel I now know this inspiring individual rather well. Let's meet the book... Revolution. Friendship. Sacrifice. But One Life: The Story of Nathan Hale is an intimate retelling of the life of a great American patriot. As a young man, he debated philosophy at Yale and developed his personal politics of the revolution. Shortly after graduation, he joined the Continental Army and volunteered a spy in 1776. How did Nathan become a man willing to sacrifice himself with just one regret – that he had but one life to give for his country? Experience the American Revolution alongside Nathan, his brother, Enoch, and good friends like Benjamin Tallmadge. They dream of liberty and indepe...