Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
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elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
@elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
2.5K followers 2K following 660 posts
Story writer. Memory curator. #EarlyModern women's history. Lucy Hutchinson got me started.
#17thC #HistoricalFiction. Once ventured into the #15thC looking for the missing princes.

https://elizabethstjohn.substack.com/
www.elizabethjstjohn.com
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Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 23h
My grandmother never spoke of her childhood in England's most notorious workhouse, Mint Street in Southwark. The memories were too painful, the stigma too great. I set out to discover her journey by visiting Southwell in Notts., and found a story, too.
elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/entering-t...
Entering the Workhouse
The first step in discovering my grandmother's past
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Such a proud moment to be The Coffee Pot Book Club Book of the Year! It's been a wonderful journey, chasing the Missing Princes through history! Thanks for all your amazing author support, CPBC!!!
cathiedunn.bsky.social Cathie Dunn – Historical Fiction & History 🥰📚 @cathiedunn.bsky.social · 4h
A final shout out for our brilliant Book of the Year 2024:

🌟The King's Intelligencer by Elizabeth St.John🌟🥳

Make sure to read this compelling mystery based on real events!

thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2024/12/book...
#AwardWinning #HistoricalMystery #BookSky
@elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
jdmccafferty.bsky.social
Towel-holder, oak, with two grotesque heads, Northern Germany, c. 1520-25.
The catalogue notes: "An inventory of Thomas Cromwell's possessions of 1527 mentions that his parlour, adjoining the kitchen, contained 'An image of a fole to hold a towel, painted.'" (V&AMuseum)
November 29, 2025 at 5:02 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
My grandmother never spoke of her childhood in England's most notorious workhouse, Mint Street in Southwark. The memories were too painful, the stigma too great. I set out to discover her journey by visiting Southwell in Notts., and found a story, too.
elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/entering-t...
Entering the Workhouse
The first step in discovering my grandmother's past
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 11:17 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Another fabulous #Series - this time set in the plague years. #GreatHistoricalFiction #HistoricalFiction #Booksky
November 14, 2025 at 3:53 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Discovering the covert lives of the women in my family inspired a whole new level of research and writing historical fiction. elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/shadowland...
Shadowlands: Women, Kinship, and the Secret Agent Networks of the English Civil War
Behind every battlefield, there was another war, waged in kitchens, convents, and country estates by women whose courage and cunning stayed hidden in history
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:51 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
What a great cause. #BookAuction
helenhollick.bsky.social @HelenHollick @helenhollick.bsky.social · 16d
Thrilled to support @childreninread.bsky.social with 2 of my books! #Bid on #HaroldTheKing jumblebee.co.uk/childreninre... OR #AMirrorMurder jumblebee.co.uk/childreninre... Authors/Illustrators dedicate their books for the biggest online #BookAuction in the world. B.B.C. Children in Need Appeal.
November 13, 2025 at 10:06 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
5 years researching and writing #HenryVIII? I couldn't spend that much time with him! But @jarnopp.bsky.social did - and the result is brilliant. #HistoricalFiction #SeriousaboutaSeries
@helenhollick.bsky.social #GreatReads

ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/2025/11/seri...
November 13, 2025 at 9:35 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Seriously thrilled to be featured on Helen's series "Serious about a Series" 😅blog post.
Thanks for sharing, Helen! #HistoricalFiction #Books #MedievalSky #TheLydiardChronicles
November 12, 2025 at 2:00 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
A fan of series fiction? Helen Hollick kicks off a week of "Serious about Series" on her blog. What makes a great series, and do we write them intentionally - or the do the characters refuse to leave?
#HIstoricalFiction
@helenhollick.bsky.social
ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/2025/11/seri...
Serious about a Series Spotlight: Today Patricia Furstenberg
A blog about pirates, 1066, King Arthur, history, mysteries, writing and general chit-chat interesting bits and pieces
ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:05 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
🌟NEW BOOK RELEASE 🌟

Enjoy an excerpt today from @deborahswift.bsky.social's fabulous new Italian Renaissance #HistoricalFiction. A brilliant addition to her Giulia Tofana Series!
Congratulations, Deborah, it's unputdownable. #KindleUnlimited #GreatReads

www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...
NEW BOOK RELEASE | Deborah Swift's Glittering Italian Historical Fiction, The Cameo Keeper - Elizabeth St.John
The Cameo Keeper by Deborah Swift Rome 1644: A Novel of Love, Power, and Poison Remember tonight… for it is the beginning of always ― Dante Alighieri In the heart of Rome, the conclave is choosing a n...
www.elizabethjstjohn.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:36 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Enjoy an excerpt from Ravenscourt - a gothic romance pick from The Coffee Pot Book Club #HistoricalRomance #GothicRomance #MustRead #CoffeePotBookClub @samwardsmithwriter.bsky.social #GreatHistoricalFiction

www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...
Ravenscourt | A Victorian Gothic Romance with a Hint of Paranormal Mystery by Samantha Ward-Smith - Elizabeth St.John
Ravenscourt by Samantha Ward-Smith He wanted to be gone from the dark enclosing room, with its mocking misery, to be gone from this house of nightmares, of shattered dreams, and discovered secrets whi...
www.elizabethjstjohn.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:30 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
I couldn’t resist imagining keen gardeners, alchemists and herbalists, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Wizard Earl of Northumberland, in the tent. Here’s how it might have gone down…and some of the peculiar recipes and ingredients that may or may not have been a “star bake”.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
The Great Tower of London Bake Off
Presented by Lady Lucy Apsley, The Lieutenant’s Wife
substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:24 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
My daughter and I spent the night alone in our ancestral home, Lydiard House. We crept up secret staircases and slept in an ancient four-poster bed, hoping to meet the 17thC 1st Baronet, or the White Lady. Some stories never rest… #GhostStories #Halloween elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/ghosts-of-...
Ghosts of Lydiard Park
A Night Alone in the Manor House with my Ancestors
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
peterpaulrubens.bsky.social
Stunning painting of an old man. Just perfect -- sensitive, moving, beautiful, human. By Jan Lievens, who was born OTD in 1607.
October 24, 2025 at 11:07 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Visiting the country church of St. Leodegarius by the manor of Ashby St. Ledger turned up some surprises, including a brass of William Catesby with his throat slashed.
#MedievalSky #History #Books
elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/hidden-ben...
Hidden Beneath the Brass: Secrets of the Princes in the Tower
A closer look at William Catesby, the lawyer who shaped Richard III’s claim—and may have known the princes’ fate
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 5:56 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
👀It's that time of year! Enjoy an excerpt from a spooky ghost romance on my site today...Penny Hampson's The Unquiet Spirit.
#GreatHistoricalFiction #GhostStories #Paranormal

www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...
Enjoy an Excerpt | The Unquiet Spirit | A Delicious Paranormal Ghost Romance by Penny Hampson - Elizabeth St.John
The Unquiet Spirit by Penny Hampson She wasn’t home alone… With her love life in tatters, Kate Wilson needs a fresh start, and where could be better than the old Cornish house that had belonged to her...
www.elizabethjstjohn.com
October 23, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
peterpaulrubens.bsky.social
Festive witches' sabbath as imagined by a follower of Jan Mandijn. Because who could resist those dancing cats?
October 22, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
peterpaulrubens.bsky.social
Important bunny, 1587. Has coat of arms! By Hans Hoffmann of Nuremberg, whose day is today.
October 19, 2025 at 5:29 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Who else can’t resist a good map? Here are a few to keep you travelling for months. Or centuries…
#Medieval #EarlyModern #Tudors #Stuarts

elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/walking-lo...
Walking London Backwards: Mapping Crime, Coffee Shops and Imagination
The city is a palimpsest of footsteps. Join me as I walk anew.
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
October 19, 2025 at 2:43 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
#OTD in 1658, on the hunt for Dean's Close in Westminster, I then got distracted and walked all the way to Wapping...
www.grubstreetproject.net/london/#map=...
London Map :: Grub Street Project
Annotated maps of London from the 16th to the 18th century
www.grubstreetproject.net
October 18, 2025 at 11:52 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
The first anniversary of The King's Intelligencer and she's still going strong. Well, some of us are paying attention...others...meh! Thanks to all my lovely friends and readers for your wonderful support and encouragement!
Ok, back to writing - a new series is percolating... #HistoricalFiction
October 15, 2025 at 6:33 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
"There were not in those days so many beautiful women found in any family as these, but my mother was by the most judgments preferred before all her elder sisters, who, something envious at it, used her unkindly.”
#Skystorians #17thC #WomensHistory

elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/the-shadow...
The Shadow Wives
Power and Patronage in the 17thC Marriage Game
elizabethstjohn.substack.com
October 12, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian
drsurekhadavies.bsky.social
ICYMI: From my newsletter blending #earlymodern and #neuroscience of present-day writing in books: "the practice of reading, note-taking, thinking, drawing, and writing can generate unexpected solutions to mysteries that are (for the reader) too difficult to test empirically."
More on #writing:
1/n
Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking
On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...
buttondown.com
October 12, 2025 at 9:33 AM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
On my blog today...an excerpt from The Came the Summer Snow, an extraordinary book detailing America's nuclear age. #MustRead #HistoricalFiction #GreatHistoricalFiction @cathiedunn.bsky.social
www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...
Then Came the Summer Snow | A Poignant and Sweeping Novel of the Nuclear Age by Trisha T. Pritikin - Elizabeth St.John
Then Came the Summer Snow Trisha T Pritikin In 1958, Edith Higgenbothum, a housewife in Richland, Washington, downwind of the massive Hanford nuclear weapons production site, discovers that the milk h...
www.elizabethjstjohn.com
October 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Judith Arnopp's perspective on Henry VIII as both a historian and a novelist makes him both accessible and understandable. While I can't imagine spending 5+ years inside his head writing a trilogy, @jarnopp.bsky.social doesn't just pull it off, she rocks it!
#Tudors #GreatHistoricalFiction
October 7, 2025 at 4:39 PM