The Forgery Furore is Here!

The Forgery Furore, first book in The Ladies of Almack’s series, is out today!

Young widow Annabel Chalfont, Countess of Fellbridge, has two small sons to raise, a mountain of her late husband's debts to pay off, and a secret: she's a shadow-shaper, able to manipulate shadow as anyone else might clay. She and six other high-born ladies with equally extraordinary abilities defend England against supernatural crime--but the world knows them only as the Lady Patronesses of Almack's, Regency London's most exclusive social venue.

The social season of 1810 starts out like any other year, but a sudden influx of strangers to Almack's exclusive balls means only one thing: someone is forging vouchers, and the evidence points to Annabel. And if finding the forger and clearing her name aren't challenging enough, there's dealing with her husband's old crony, the Marquess of Quinceton, and his hungry wolf stare...

The idea for a series of Regency-set stories featuring the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s as supernatural crime fighters came to me years ago. I’ve worked on it on and off for a long time, but it was only in the last couple of years that all of my ideas around it coalesced into an actual coherent series rather than a set of vaguely linked stories.

The Ladies of Almack’s mixes actual figures and events with my own characters and “speculation” on what might have happened behind the history we know about. Annabel and her fellow Lady Patronesses will go through many adventures together, eventually saving England from a dastardly Napoleonic plot…but of course, there’s a slow-burn romance wrapped up in it as well, along with (I hope) some light-hearted fun.

You can read the first chapter of The Forgery Furore on my website…and if you’d like a further taste of the Ladies of Almack’s, my short story “Just Another Quiet Evening at Almack’s” can be downloaded from BookFunnel by my newsletter subscribers.

Look for the second Ladies of Almack’s adventure, The Vanishing Volume, on April 5…and for their further adventures at the beginning of each month. All are available direct from the publisher, Book View Cafe, as well as from Amazon (affiliate link), Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, and Smashwords, and in print from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

New Release News!

“It happened at the ball.”
“What did?”
“Well, a lot of things...”

Lots of things can happen at balls—flirtation, negotiation, revenge...you name it. Fantasy author Sherwood Smith knows a thing or two about the subject, and she’s invited twelve other authors (including me!) to write stories about the strange, wonderful, and thrilling things that can happen when people come together to dance. They’re gathered together in a new anthology from Book View Café.
  

The pleasure of your company is requested.

Graceful feet tracing courtly steps.
Eyes in jeweled masks meeting across a room of twirling dancers.
Gloved hands touching fleetingly—or gripping swords...

Anything can happen at a ball.

You are invited to enjoy stories of fancy and fantasy from 13 authors, framed in the splendor and elegance of a ballroom. Be it at a house party for diplomats and thieves, or Almacks in a side-universe in which the Patronesses have magic, or a medieval festival just after the plague years ...

Prepare to be swept into the enchantment of the dance!

And here’s the table of contents:

Marie Brennan “The Şiret Mask”

Marissa Doyle “Just Another Quiet Evening at Almack’s”

Sara Stamey  “Homeworld Stranger”

Charlotte Gumanaam “Kerygma in Waltz Time”

Irene Radford “Dancing Bangles”

Gillian Polack “A Plague of Dancers”

Deborah J. Ross “A Borrowed Heart”

Francesca Forrest  “Gown of Harmonies”

Lynne April Brown “The Dress”

P.G. Nagle “A Waltz for May”

Brenda W. Clough “Sherbet on Silver”

Layla Lawlor “Gilt and Glamour”

Sherwood Smith “Lily and Crown”

I’m quite excited about my contribution. “Just Another Quiet Evening at Almack’s” introduces a world I’ve been working in for a while now, a world where the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s, those ever-so-correct and haughty ladies, secretly fight magical crime among the beau monde when they are not dispensing vouchers to the deserving. Call it Georgette Heyer meets the Powerpuff Girls...but more on that at a later date... 😉 Let me know what you think of it!

It Happened at the Ball is available as an ebook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo, as well as in a print edition. I hope you’ll give it a try!