#GuestPost by Patricia Furstenberg Author of #WhenSecretsBloom | @PatFurstenberg

‘The crocus on the book cover of When Secrets Bloom is no mere embellishment. It’s the novel’s pulse. Chosen with intention, it mirrors the quiet force of the women within: those who wait, who remember, who hold fast through the frost.‘
– When Secrets Bloom

Today I am delighted to welcome back Patricia Furstenberg, author of When Secrets Bloom, which was published on June 27th, 2025. Book 1 in the Blood of Kings, Heart of Shadows series, it is described as ‘a gripping, enchanting Transylvanian historical fiction novel‘. Patricia has written a beautiful guest post reflecting on the strength of flowers, Transylvanian folklore and the inspiration behind her writing this novel. I do hope you enjoy!

[ About When Secrets Bloom ]

Transylvania, 1463

Some secrets heal. Others kill.

Kate Webber, a 28-year-old Saxon healer, has long walked the line between reverence and suspicion. Trained in the healing arts under the guidance of Lord Vlad Dracula, she has learned that skill alone cannot protect a woman in a city ruled by fear. Her marriage to the powerful but secretive Magyar promised stability, yet left her silenced and watched. On a bitter Advent night, when a mother and her newborn face death, Kate defies her husband’s command and steps into danger — for life, not reputation.

When Kate succeeds, the city notices. Some with awe. Others with fury. The town physician, threatened by her talent and humiliated by her success, seizes his moment. And as rumors flare into accusations, old alliances stir. Iancu, Kate’s childhood friend and now captain of the Militia, comes to her aid during the perilous birth — rekindling memories of freedom, laughter, and trust, before marriage shackled her to duty.

Back in her workshop, a girl appears, pleading for a love potion. But Margit brings more than need. She leads a mob. Elsewhere in the city, Moise, a Jewish apprentice at the printing press, notices a cloaked figure drifting across the square: a Shaman whose presence draws whispers of Magyar’s hidden dealings. When a rare manuscript disappears from the press Moise begins to uncover a darker purpose: a sought-after book. On the day of execution Kate performs a final act of defiance, she saves another child, while Moise is framed for more than he could have ever imagined.

Kate and Moise’s fates, as well as the map’s legacy, unfold as some secrets must be read not in books, but in the hearts of those who hide them.

When Secrets Bloom – Purchase Link

[ Guest Post ]

I’ve always been drawn to the quiet language of flowers: rooted in folklore, symbolic in art, whispering stories through centuries. In my native Romania flowers don’t just bloom, they speak. They guard thresholds, bless births, mourn the dead, and carry messages that, sometimes, no voice dares utter.

In When Secrets Bloom, my latest historical novel set in medieval Transylvania, crocuses emerge not only from the soil but from memory and longing. They mark seasons and absences, love and exile. The crocus on the cover isn’t mere decoration but a symbol of resilience, of beauty persisting in silence, and of secrets waiting for light.

In the world of healing plants there’s a fragile boundary, like fog over a lake, between the sacred and the profane. Some plants carry names rooted in legends, whispered from one generation to the next. Others wear the garb of human traits, sanctified or desecrated through the eyes of folklore. A nettle may burn, yet also heal. A flower may soothe the heart but also stir a spell. As with all things born of the earth, there is always duality. A fine line separating a poultice from a poison. What grows soft and green, what blooms bright and fragrant is often linked to God and the forces of light. Thistles, brambles or nettles that sting or scratch are said to grow closer to the realm below. Yet even these can be turned, with the right hands and the right prayer, toward healing.

Crocuses are no exception. Their golden threads once eased the aches of rheumatism. Pliny the Elder advised saffron worn at the neck to prevent drunkenness. Mothers, more tender in their wisdom, tied it around children’s throats to keep harm at bay. One flower, medicine or talisman, depending on the hand that gathers it.

In When Secrets Bloom this blurred line between remedy and peril is stitched into the life of Kate, the Saxon healer at the heart of the story. Her knowledge of herbs is hard-won, sacred but dangerous. In a time when women who understood nature too well were as feared as they were needed, Kate walks daily between salvation and suspicion. Each flower she picks, each root she brews, must be both exact and invisible. Too much attention and her remedy becomes a weapon in the eyes of those who mistrust her (because she is a woman in a world of men.)

And then there is the crocus. Her secret flower. In the story, it blooms not only for the living but for the dead, on both sides of the veil. It blooms where sorrow sleeps and where love once stood. A whisper of spring during frost or of autumn during harvest. Just like memory. Just like fear.

Within this soft, uncertain space between healing and harm, memory and myth, grows the idea of sister flowers: blossoms that bloom in the same season but never beside one another. In folk belief, if you gather them and cast them into a river your sins will be forgiven for you helped the sisters reunite at last.

So begins the legend of the crocuses, brândușele in Romanian, flowers with a soul. Once, long ago, there lived two sisters: kind, spirited, hard-working. But their mother died and their father soon remarried. The new wife, cold of heart, drove one sister away in autumn, when the last gold clung to the birch leaves. The other followed in spring, cast out as crocuses shyly pierced the thawing earth. Though both sisters searched, through forests and markets, through seasons, they never found one another again. God, it is said, took pity. He turned them into crocuses. One blooms in spring, the other in autumn. Sister blossoms born of the same sorrow, rooted in longing. Growing close, yet never touching.

This quiet legend still lingers in the hills of Transylvania and it inspired the symbolic heart of When Secrets Bloom. The crocus on the book’s cover is not decorative. It’s a key. A sign. A whisper of all that is lost and all that might yet return.

Like the sister flowers, Kate, my protagonist, carries memory and separation deep within her. Her past is strewn with silences, with absences that ache like bruises. But the crocus, enduring, offers something more: the fragile hope of reunion. The belief that even what is torn apart might one day bloom again.

In Transylvania, flowers have long spoken where words fall short. On the traditional ia — the Romanian blouse — floral motifs were never mere decoration. They told a woman’s story: golden threads for maidenhood, red for new brides, blue for mothers, black for mourning. Each bloom chosen with care, worn over the chest like a whispered prayer. The crocus appears here too. Small, persistent, embroidered by hands that knew both silence and strength. It speaks not only of spring’s return, but of endurance, quietly passed from mother to daughter, from one season of life to the next.

That same language blooms in wood. On the carved gates of Maramureș and the Székely Land, crocuses and tulips were etched for women, carnations for men. These gates marked more than property; they marked a crossing between the world outside and the sacred space of home. Between hardship and love. Between the profane and the deeply personal.

The crocus on the book cover of When Secrets Bloom is no mere embellishment. It’s the novel’s pulse. Chosen with intention, it mirrors the quiet force of the women within: those who wait, who remember, who hold fast through the frost.

Look closely at the cover. The crocuses don’t shout. They don’t boast. Yet they refuse to be buried, blooming when the world is still too cold, too uncertain. That is Kate’s spirit. And it is the spirit of every woman in the novel who dares to carry knowledge, who dares to speak up in a world that fears her voice.

In folklore, flowers carry the weight of generations. In art, they hold meaning when voices are stilled. And in When Secrets Bloom, the crocus is all these things: a vessel for memory, a gesture of healing, a symbol of resistance.

So when you next see a crocus, wild in the grass, stitched in thread, or carved in wood, pause. Remember the women who waited behind the gates of history. Who hid knowledge in the hem of their sleeves. Who told stories, not aloud, but with their hands.

A flower is never just a flower. And a story, once rooted, will always find a way to bloom.

When Secrets Bloom – Purchase Link

[ Bio ]

Patricia Furstenberg writes historical fiction inspired by the forgotten corners of the past, where truth and legend entwine. With a medical degree and a heart rooted in Transylvania, her stories often explore resilience, hidden truths, and the quiet strength of women and dogs.

She is best known for her war fiction Joyful Trouble, Silent Heroes and the new and enchanting When Secrets Bloom.

Twitter/X ~ @PatFurstenberg

Author Website ~ https://alluringcreations.co.za/wp/