Right now I’m busy researching for the next book in my historic dark fantasy Tales of Malstria series called Risen.

One of the books I’ve been reading is entitled Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul Newman. It’s a well written text with information on things like food, housing, clothing, recreation, and health. I’m finding some great inspiration to help bring by next novel alive.

To give you some insights into the kinds of material I find useful, here’s a small excerpt from the book.

More refined people may have also followed the advice of the health manuals and rinsed out their mouths periodically with solutions of wine or vinegar and scrubbed their teeth with towels when bathing. To better clean and whiten their teeth and toughen their gums, they chewed on mallows, reedy plants that grew in marshy areas and from which the substance “marshmallow” was originally derived. At the end of meals, such people were also likely to eat spiced candies, if at a feast, or, more commonly, seeds of anise and fennel, leaves of mint, and other herbs to freshen their breath and stimulate the gums. All these practices helped to maintain oral health, but there is little evidence that most people employed any measures beyond picking their teeth, occasionally wiping them, and rinsing out their mouths with water or some other potable liquid.

So, that’s how Quin keeps his smile bright?