Another of the HistFic Outside the Box authors participation in the promotion until 30 April! If you like historical fiction and want something a little different, check out the Charlene Newcomb's stories set in the Crusades!
TWO SISTERS, VETERANS of World War II and still eager for “excitements” in their late nineties, find more thrills than they had bargained for on a trip to Paris. Charming adventure for fans of the Thursday Murder Club and Mrs. Pargeter. B PLUS
Another author with not-the-usual historical fiction is Bryn Hammond, who writes about the Mongols! Along with the two books pictured here, there's a short Mongol story - "Women Who Lie Alone in Tombs" (ie die unmarried) and a short about Shakepeare and Marlow called "The Last Play". A great chance to explore new writers of queer historical fic!
The HistFic Outside the Box promo starts today and goes till 30 April! You can buy my Sherlock Holmes/John Watson historical crime romance The Adventure of the Colonial Boy and also get a NEW free ebook of short stories, set after the novel, The Swordmaster's Secret!
Get unusual & queer historical fiction by other authors too, including medieval Islamic stories, 13thC Mongols, Wild West, WWI/WWII, & Shakespeare!
#WordWeavers 18: Do you write primarily in the same genre you read as a child?
I was a voracious reader across genres ... but the thing that suddenly occurred to me was how much I loved Victoria Holt's gothic novels as a tween (although we didn't have that term then) and teen. Reading Anya Seton's "Green Darkness" as a teenager made me a historical fiction fan for life ... and that's the primary genre I write. So, the answer is "yes, and ..."
The battle of #Culloden was fought #OTD, 16 April 1746. It has, unsurprisingly, left a significant imprint in the literature & culture of Scotland. A short 🧵
1/8
John Buchan called FLEMINGTON—Violet Jacob’s 1911 novel of the 1745 #Jacobite rising & aftermath—“the best Scots #romantic novel since The Master of Ballantrae”
Twists, turns, and Angst (👈 note the capital A!) are center stage in this third book in the Shadow series. A sultry spy has fallen for her mark and all hell is about to break loose. Buckle up. 💄👠🥃😬 https://books2read.com/itsot
(This is a series. The books are not standalones)
George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) – author, historian, journalist, screenwriter – was born #OTD, 2 April, 1925
“His dedication to strongly researched stories, built firmly on a bedrock of historical fact, but always with an eye to the humour of a situation, was the core of what appealed to me”
Historical novelist Michael Jecks discusses George MacDonald Fraser’s writing for the Royal Literary Fund:
Today in Labor History April 1, 1929: Textile workers struck at the Loray Mill, in Gastonia, N.C. Textile mills started moving from New England, to the South, in the 1890s, to avoid the unions. This escalated after the 1909 Shirtwaist strike (which preceded the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist fire), the IWW-led Lawrence (1912) and (1913) Patterson strikes, which were led by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood and Carlo Tresca. The Gastonia strike was violent and bloody. Dozens of strikers were imprisoned. A pregnant white woman, Ella Mae Wiggins, wrote and performed songs during the strike. She also lived with and organized African American workers, one of the worst crimes a poor white woman could commit in the South. The strike ended soon after goons murdered her. Woody Guthrie called Wiggins the pioneer of the protest ballad and one of the great folk song writers.
Wiley Cash wrote a wonderful novel about Ella Mae Wiggins and the Gastonia strike, “The Last Ballad.” Jess Walter wrote a really great novel about the Spokane free speech fight, featuring Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, called “The Cold Millions.” Other novels about the Gastonia strike include Sherwood Anderson’s, “Beyond Desire,” and Mary Heaton Vorse’s, “Strike!”
“There was a time in the history of France when the poor found themselves oppressed to such an extent that forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and hundreds of heads tumbled into the basket. That time may have arrived with us.”
A cooper said this to a crowd of 10,000 workers in St. Louis, Missouri in July, 1877. He was referring to the Paris Commune, which happened just six years prior. Like the Parisian workers, the Saint Louis strikers openly called for the use of arms, not only to defend themselves against the violence of the militias and police who were sent to crush their strike, but for outright revolutionary aims.
The Great Upheaval was the first major worker uprising in the United States. It began in the fourth year of the Long Depression which, in many ways, was worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It lasted twenty-three years and included four separate financial panics. In 1873, over 5,000 business failed. Over one million Americans lost their jobs. In the following two years, another 13,000 businesses failed. Railroad workers’ wages dropped 40-50%. And one thousand infants were dying each week in New York City.
By 1877, workers had suffered four years of wage cuts and layoffs. In July, the B&O Railroad slashed wages by 10%, their second wage cut in eight months. On July 16, 1877, the trainmen of Martinsburg, West Virginia, refused to work. They occupied the rail yards and drove out the police. Local townspeople backed the strikers and came to their defense. The militia tried to run the trains, but the strikers derailed them and guarded the switches with guns. They halted all freight movement, but continued moving mail and passengers, to successfully maintain public support.
I’ve just finished this very enjoyable, pan-historical garden fantasy (is garden fantasy a genre? It is now!), ‘Threading the Labyrinth’ by Tiffani Angus.
Yes, but did YOUR husband bring you flowers for the fifth anniversary of your debut novel, ‘Storytellers’, which you can download for FREE between March 20-22 at https://www.bjornlarssen.com/s43
because he probably didn’t and you need a distraction?
Today in Labor History March 18, 1918: U.S. authorities arrested Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón under the Espionage Act. They charged him with hindering the American war effort and imprisoned him at Leavenworth, where he died under highly suspicious circumstances. The authorities claimed he died of a "heart attack," but Chicano inmates rioted after his death and killed the prison guard who they believed executed him. Magon published the periodical “Regeneracion” with his brother Jesus, and with Licenciado Antonio Horcasitas. The Magonostas later led a revolution in Baja California during the Mexican Revolution. Many American members of the IWW participated. During the uprising, they conquered and held Tijuana for several days. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). Dos Passos references in his “USA Trilogy.”
Today in Labor History March 17, 1968: The U.S. Army Chemical Corps killed over 6,000 sheep while illegally testing a nerve gas agent at the Dugway Proving Ground in Skull Valley, Utah. A 1998 report, the by Air Force Press was the "first documented admission" from the Army that a nerve agent killed the sheep at Skull Valley. The incident inspired Stephen King's novel “The Stand.”
I finished Menewood by Nicola Griffith (@Nicolaz ) a few nights ago and I still find myself drifting in the world of the book. Impeccably researched, gorgeously written, Menewood immersed me in Hild's world, the scents, sounds, flora, fauna, weather, people, places, religions, politics. And ever at the center the strong, capable, wild Hild. A masterpiece. @bookstodon @medievodons #historicalfiction#bookreview
#Book 23 -- THE WOLF AND THE WATCHMAN by Niklas Natt Och Dag -- I loved this first in a proposed trilogy that is part #mystery , part #HistoricalFiction set in 1793 Stockholm. Thanks to Atria books for the review copy.