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 history of the written word is fascinating. It is largely easy enough to come across in the form of books and pamphlets, and through these we can get an idea of how society was structured - at least from the top downwards! But the best writing to tell you the truth about someone, comes in the form of letters. Over the years, I've collected many letters - some personal to me, others from and to complete strangers. As you might have gathered, we are a family of hoarders when it comes to history. There are letters from businessmen to clients, from parents to children, and from partner to partner. They provide a wonderful insight into the normality of life, something which I feel has helped me to better form my characters in my head so that, although these letters might never make the page, I know the backdrop to their conversations: what they chose to write about and what matters to them when they are at a distance from one another. One letter which did make it into my writing was...