writing

In the last few years, I’ve started writing (fiction), a complete change from things I have done before. Most of my writing has been set in medieval times, as I am quite interested in the era, but recently I’ve been digging into Colonial America, the Age of Sail, and pirates…

I’ve been fortunate to have a few of my stories published. One for money, even! Links below.

The Shanty Man

An eerie adventure set during the Golden Age of Piracy.

Forged

My retelling of the medieval legend of Morgana le Fay and King Arthur, set in Sicily, published in Carmina Magazine

The War Without Love is a medieval mystery short story that I wrote for a competition honoring the late C. J. Sansom. I posted it on my medieval substack.

The War Without Love

Holly A Brown at Medieval Musings has created a memorial writing event for the author CJ Sansom, who died in 2024. Sansom wrote the Tudor-era Matthew Shardlake series, as well as the outstanding Winter in Madrid. Participants were asked to write a short historical mystery featuring a sleuth and his assistant, honoring Sansom’s style. I hope you enjoy The War Without Love, a tale of the troubadour Bertran de Born, set during the era of Richard the Lionheart.

I’m working on a novel of the Third Crusade. It is done, but not yet published. if that topic appeals to you, you might enjoy my Substack where I explore the era of Richard the Lionheart.

Medieval Substack

An exploration of the era of Richard the Lionheart.

I’ve also published a number of books based on open source materials from the Third Crusade. As I began researching Richard the Lionheart, I found myself interested to read the contemporary histories of his era, written by eye witnesses to the events. The books are on the obscure side, necessitating either a trip to the library or ordering expensive (and heavy!) physical copies. Nicely formatted eBook editions were hard to come by. There are public domain translations of these works available online, often just as image scans. Finding correctly formatted versions with beautiful typography in an eReader like a Kindle it was a problem.

So I made my own. Now you can have them too. Here they are, with links to Amazon where you can purchase them for a nominal amount.

The Annals of Roger De Hoveden, Vol 2.

Roger is the “gold standard” of contemporary histories of Richard, in terms of accuracy. Roger was on crusade with Richard for a time. Tons of fantastic details, entire copies of many letters between the principle participants, and events covered nowhere else, such as Richard’s gift of Excalibur to Tancred of Sicily. Get it here.

The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes

A short but snarky history of the Third Crusade, primarily addressing Richard’s actions. This link will take you to the edition we created based on the J. A. Giles translation; it is one of the few (only?) eBook editions of this work with high quality typography and formatting.

Itinerary of Richard I and Others to the Holy Land

de Templo’s history is rich and detailed, sharing much with the Ambroise verse epic of the same events. It covers a number of episodes not mentioned in other places or covered with little detail, including tarantulas. Not kidding. Our edition on Amazon is here.

I’m currently writing a book set during the Golden Age of Piracy. Cotton Mather seems to be figuring into the book, at least so he tells me from time to time. As you may know Mather was the firebrand Puritan preacher in Boston, (in)famous for his (supposed) role in the Salem Witch Trials. He ministered to many pirates condemned to hang and gave sermons at their executions. The sermons are, as the kids say now, “a lot.” You can now read them in my nicely formatted edition along with historical commentary.

Cotton Mather & the Pirates

Step into the turbulent waters of early 18th-century New England and the Golden Age of Piracy, where the line between piety and piracy was drawn at the gallows. Cotton Mather & the Pirates brings together the fire-and-brimstone pirate execution sermons of Puritan minister Cotton Mather, and the transcripts of the trials that sent the pirates to the gallows.