Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 23h

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

Judith Arnopp @jarnopp.bsky.social · 1d

In one from the archive I chat with @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social about A Matter of Conscience which incidentally is 99p at the moment!

www.elizabethjstjohn.com/judith-arnop...

#historicalFiction

Judith Arnopp | New Release | A Matter of Conscience - Elizabeth St.John

Judith Arnopp is a master storyteller, talented gardener, and an inspirational re-enactor. I’m so happy to have Judith on Author Chats today, for I’ve loved her books for a long time, and have been ea...

www.elizabethjstjohn.com

1 6 4

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 2d

Hester Biddle was a Quaker preacher who was imprisoned 14 times, often simply for preaching. She was enraged by the growing inequalities of C17th London and warned that God would judge those who ignored the needs of those begging for food on the streets. Ch 7 of Voices of Thunder tells her story

3 4 23

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 1d

🌟NEW BOOK RELEASE🌟
Enjoy an excerpt from a powerful new historical fiction novel set during Italy's medieval plague years.
#CoffeePotBookClub
@cathiedunn.bsky.social
#MedievalSky #GreatHistoricalFiction
www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...

The Blackest Time | Powerful Medieval Italian Historical Fiction by Ken Tentarelli - Elizabeth St.John

The Blackest Time by Ken Tentarelli Set in the 1300s during the devastating black plague, The Blackest Time is a powerful tale of compassion, love, and the human spirit’s ability to endure immense adv...

www.elizabethjstjohn.com

2 3

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 1d

I’m pleased to say you can now pre-order my next book, ‘Fairies: A History’ (out in February 2026) from
@politybooks.bsky.social. Thank you to Jeremy Harte, Simon Young, Jo Hickey-Hall and Owen Davies for such generous endorsements! 🌿📚 www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

13 50 260

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 5d

Featured on my blog with a #BookReview today, a terrific #CoffeePotBookClub #NewRelease:
Tailored Truths by @nansjar23.bsky.social
#GreatHistoricalFiction #Victorian
@cathiedunn.bsky.social

www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...

Tailored Truths | Emotionally Gripping Scottish Historical Fiction by Nancy Jardine - Elizabeth St.John

Tailored Truths by Nancy Jardine An engrossing Victorian Scotland Saga (Silver Sampler Series Book 2) Is self-supporting success enough for Margaret Law or will her future also include an adoring husb...

www.elizabethjstjohn.com

2 3

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks to a Kindle Promo, The Godmother's Secret is on sale for 99p all of October.

geni.us/GodmothersSe...

"Extremely well written. The best book I've read in ages." - Richard III Society

#Medieval #HistoricalFiction #MedievalSky #PrincesintheTower

6 3

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 8d

Just researching Sir Edward Herbert for my WiP and came across this miniature by Isaac Oliver, which is exactly the kind of selfie I would love my boyfriend to give me. Apparently, he's chilling in the woods after a joust. #EarlyModern #17thC #KeepitStuart #ComeHither

2 6 42

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Neil Younger @neilayounger.bsky.social · 9d

29 September 1582: As it's Michaelmas, presumably everyone is having to pay their rents and other such tiresome admin and is generally in a bad mood. Unless of course they're landlords, like Elizabeth I, who, it appears by a paper today, has spent £881 23d on embroidery this year. 1/
#earlymodern

3 7 27

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.com · 10d

This is interesting—I see a lot of these tells in my work with writing scams, where the use of chatbots in scam solicitations and impersonations has become ubiquitous.

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · Aug 31

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1 58 110

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Elizabeth Currie @ecurrie.bsky.social · 11d

Another AI triumph
#earlymodern
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

AI analysis finds £71,000 painting dismissed as copy is a Caravaggio

Exclusive: Study gives 85.7% probability Badminton House version of The Lute Player is by 17th-century master

www.theguardian.com

1 4

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 10d

#Caturday
Bleh.

1 12

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 10d

Looks like a fourth isn't too far away. Wonderful portrait - and a poignant reminder of who she was as a mother, just in case she didn't survive the dangers of childbirth. She was 35 when this was painted.

Tony Riches @tonyriches.bsky.social · 10d

Lady Anne Pope (1561-1625), with her three children from her first marriage to Henry Wentworth, 3rd Baron Wentworth: Thomas, Henry, and Jane. #StuartSaturday

1 3

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Judith Arnopp @jarnopp.bsky.social · 10d

Perkin Warbeck suffered a traitor's death but what if ... he really was one of the lost princes in the tower

http://mybook.to/asongofsixpence

##HistoricalFiction ##Tudors ##HistFic ##Audible ##KU

1 1

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 10d

The Tower has given up its secrets…

Exceptionally well-researched, beautifully written, and utterly gripping.”

“A compelling tale weaving together conspiracy, passion, and the struggle for a woman's voice in a patriarchal society.”

#HistoricalFiction

www.elizabethjstjohn.com/books/missin...

Lost Princes Found in the Tower of London: King Charles Orders National Mourning - Elizabeth St.John

In 1674, workmen demolishing dilapidated wooden structures in the Tower of London made a shocking discovery

www.elizabethjstjohn.com

1 1

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 11d

From the visible scars of the Great Fire to the haunting memories of the Great Plague, I travel deep into the peril and danger that lurked in Restoration London. Was the discovery of the murdered princes a sign, as Charles II claimed? #HistoricalFiction
elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/immersed-i...

Immersed in Peril

Crafting the Intrigue of 17th-Century London in The King’s Intelligencer

elizabethstjohn.substack.com

3 4

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 15d

Lucy Apsley funded Raleigh and the "Wizard Earl" in their alchemy, allowing them to experiment in her henhouse. In return, she gained valuable medical insights with which to nurse her prisoners in the Tower of London. #EarlyModern #Stuarts #Medicine
elizabethstjohn.substack.com/p/a-woman-al...

A Woman Alchemist in the Tower of London

Lucy Apsley and Sir Walter Raleigh's experiments and medicinal practices

elizabethstjohn.substack.com

4 6

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 15d

A delightful new release from the wonderful Stephanie Cowell. Enjoy an excerpt on my blog today.
#CoffeePotBookClub #GreatHistoricalFiction #HistoricalFiction #Brontes
@cathiedunn.bsky.social www.elizabethjstjohn.com/guest-author...

The Man in the Stone Cottage | Enjoy an excerpt from a beautiful story of the Brontes by Stephanie Cowell - Elizabeth St.John

The Man in the Stone Cottage: a novel of the Brontë sisters By Stephanie Cowell Audiobook by Brilliance Audio “A haunting and atmospheric historical novel.” – Library Journal In 1846 Yorkshire, the ...

www.elizabethjstjohn.com

5 5

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Taylor Aucoin @aucointaylor.bsky.social · 16d

Delighted to share that my first book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England (co-written with the fantastic @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, and Hannah Robb) has been published and is available free and Open Access! doi.org/10.1017/9781...

#earlymodern #economic #history

The Experience of Work in Early Modern England

Cambridge Core - Economic History - The Experience of Work in Early Modern England

doi.org

7 65 140

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 16d

Absolutely agree - James's legs were weak, and I've tripped on that staircase myself before! There was another document which also supported "some whisper that he got a greater bruise than he would have it thought."
Fortunately, it didn't seem to prevent him returning a couple of years later.

1

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 16d

I recently discovered this correspondence describing James's accident on the stairs at Lydiard Park...and the cover-up of how badly bruised he was.
#EarlyModern #InHisCups www.friendsoflydiardpark.org.uk/tales-of-lyd...

A Royal Tumble at Lydiard: King James I, July 1613 - Friends of Lydiard Park

On 27th July 1613, “Liddiard” welcomed King James I to the house of Sir John St.John, 1st Baronet. The queen, Anne of Denmark, was journeying to the famous spa at Bath to take the waters for her healt...

www.friendsoflydiardpark.org.uk

1 3 8

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 16d

This looks intriguing!
Adding to my TBR pile. Interested to see how it compares with Lucy Hutchinson's Memoirs and the demise of her family after her husband's imprisonment and death (although he was a regicide, he was pardoned by Charles, and then set up later by Buckingham).

Gaby Mahlberg @thehistorywoman.bsky.social · 16d

Just finished reading "Regicide in the Family: Finding John Dixwell" (2022) by Sarah Dixwell Brown. Very personal and very moving, combining family history with the history of the English Civil Wars and the fate of the regicides in exile. thehistorywoman.com/2025/09/21/p... #skystorians #earlymodern

Passing on a regicide’s key

The story begins in 1980 with a chance find on John Dixwell in the British Museum, then resumes in New England several decades later with an old key handed over to the author in a plastic bag. Sara…

thehistorywoman.com

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 17d

Gets me every time. And then the bite...🦁

1

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 17d

My research assistant has had enough. Time to stand up, stretch and get some lunch. #WritersLife #AmResearching #AmWriting #HistoricalFiction #Caturday.

1 9

Reposted by Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian

Tony Riches @tonyriches.bsky.social · 18d

The Queen's influence: how Henrietta Maria Stuart was so much more than a royal wife londonlifewithliz.com/2018/04/08/t... #Stuarts #History

The Queen’s influence: how Henrietta Maria Stuart was so much more than a royal wife

We know a huge amount about the majority of British monarchs and the lives they led. Books about many of them continue to be published hundreds of years after their deaths – will we ever tire…

londonlifewithliz.com

4 5

Elizabeth St.John 📚💙📜Author and Historian @elizabethstjohn.bsky.social · 18d

Had a great day writing today. I would have written twice as much if I hadn't spent so much time in Visscher's London. This version has a zoom function, which means I could explore on foot and by water. Tired but happy. #EarlyModern #Stuarts #London
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

1 8