From Amazon:
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.
***
Kate is a fictional character, yet through her eyes When Secrets Bloom offers a vivid, textured glimpse into 15th-century life in Kronstadt, Transylvania (today Brasov). From the daily rhythms of a fortress ruled by Saxon and Szekler men to the endearing hopes of Vlach and Jewish communities; from the quiet power women wield behind closed doors to the looming shadow of the Church and to whispered fears of plague and heresy, this novel immerses the reader fully in a world both beautiful and brutal. The presence of Vlad the Impaler’s memory — observed not through myth but through Kate’s wary, intimate lens — adds a haunting tension to the tale. It’s the kind of historical fiction that doesn’t just tell a story, it transports you into its bones.
Fans of rousing historical fiction with a feminist bent will find much to love in When Secrets Bloom.
My Review:
This novel is woven tightly and in an intricate fashion full of 15th century Transylvania. Dark times were upon the land, with trades people, merchants, physicians, midwives, princes, and true hierarchies everywhere. A land where greed came first and foremost in those of higher standings.
We are introduced to Kate and Moise, and within the pages their stories connect often. Kate is a wonderful healer, she learned from the best, her mother, and she inherited wealth of her own. She is a gifted healer and men hated that. They were jealous that the physician could do nothing, nor the midwife really, in the birth of a baby in which Kate had to literally move the baby into a birthing manner, still feet first. Yes, she literally pulls the baby out one leg at a time, the body, then one arm and shoulder followed by the other, and finally its head emerged. The baby lived, so did the mother, but had it been left to the physician and midwife, both would have perished. Kate was not a witch, but a healer. A healer who traveled along with war, and she did the best she could in healing, yet her own husband was jealous of her.
Moise is a man of Jewish faith, and he prints books. He wants to find a stolen book that holds treasure map. He has his own share of travails, in a land that is cold as winter, literally, and his own anguish is expressed well by Ms. Furstenberg. Darkness prevails over the land and people, shadows of evil and good. Another book is forthcoming, book two in this series, and this book is chock full of historical information.
When Angels Fly 