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Alison Lloyd’s blog
12 Books to Please your Friends & Family
November 2024
If you’re looking for gifts, here’s my roundup of 2024’s award-winning historical fiction, with my recommendations of this year’s best historical novels…
An Eye-watering History of Hay Fever
October 2024
Has the season got you sneezing? Hayfever has an intriguing and entertaining history. Let me fix you up good with a dose of historical medicine.
Feelin’ Groovy
September 2024
Get happy in a halter top – seventies’ style, songs, quiz and fiction…
A Fling with Bling
August 2024
Or, What Happened to my Gold? Gorgeous golden facts and fiction
Surprising Stories from early Olympics
July 2024
Who was the first female Olympic champion? And how to be a champion without knowing it…
Snakes in a Library!
June 2024
The State Library of Victoria’s beautiful old books and its slithery secret…
How Mothers Day Matters
May 2024
Motherhood can be heavenly. But also a setup for failure.
STORY: At a Crossroads
May 2024
*Winner – Short Fiction Break 2024 Spring Contest*
A distracted mother, an exhausted driver, and a day-dreaming lad approach a train crossing…
QUIZ: Which Famous Woman are You?
March 2024
If you lived in another era, which famous and fascinating woman might you have been like? Take a personality quiz with a historic twist…
Easter Extra
March 2024
I turned up to a breakfast event a few minutes late recently. Gentle early sun gleamed on an empty carpark. Something wasn’t right…
How an Old Treasure was Rediscovered
April 2024
This woman was lost for almost a century, until early 2024. She wasn’t the only painting by this famous artist to go missing…
Quiz! Which woman are you?
March 2024
Discover six fascinating and famous women of history…
‘The February 14th Story’: A short Romance for Valentine’s Day
February 2024
Beatrice, a telephone operator in 1888, sets out to right wrongs just before Valentine’s Day. A fun short story featuring one of the characters in the late Victorian world of my current novel.
Exclusive, unpublished romantic historical fiction!
10 Romantic Reads to Sweep you back in Time
February 2024
Here are 10 of my favourite romantic historical novels to sweep you off your feet. Love is story-worthy stuff!
New year, new look? A perspective from a Victorian Grand Dame
January 2024
Take a look inside a grand old dame of Victorian architecture, the Royal Exhibition Building, and how it might help you think about change.
‘The Christmas When Tomten Didn’t Come’: A Scandinavian Story
December 2023
A gentle, poignant Christmas story, about two young brothers eagerly looking forward to a Christmas that doesn’t come as expected. Exclusive, unpublished fiction for subscribers only.
Top Hats Rule:
The Heady Power of Millinery Style
November 2023
Hats had their heyday in the Victorian era. Find out how hats bestowed power and identity, and still do…
10 Great Historical Gothic Reads
October 2023
10 of the best stories for seriously delicious historical shivers…
Castles in the Air and on the Ground
September 2023
Meet a master of marketing in Gilded Age Melbourne, who even advertised for a wife…
Brains, Beauty & Breeches:
10 Female Firsts
March 2023
For Women’s History Month, find out about ten women who were first to: rule a nation, write a book, compose surviving music and more…
Cupid’s Column: matchmaking in the Victorian era
How were matches made in the old days before online dating. Romance was quite a business in colonial Australia…
Sharp Arts: diplomacy at needlepoint
August 2023
Who is this? Not Elizabeth I, but another woman at the pointy end of art and politics, who wielded both pen and needle…
Hidden Riches:
The Gilded Age Downunder
July 2023
In which Alison peeks behind the solid doors of an old bank to show you some gorgeous golden history. A nineteenth century tale of boom and bust…
Castles in the Air and on the Ground
September 2023
Meet a master of marketing in Gilded Age Melbourne, who even advertised for a wife…
Mothers & Others
May 2023
A 000-sized meditation on motherhood and a new short story to celebrate Mother’s Day.
Plus a howler of a 1907 postcard from New Zealand.
Bonzerina – Slinging Good Old Slang
April 2023
A post of positivity: talking things up in late Victorian lingo
Like more stories?
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