I’m not sure there was a time when I wasn’t writing. Even though I didn’t become more serious about it until I passed my teenage years, I still remember playing in my backyard as a kid, creating stories while among the trees and then rushing back in to make “books” when the sun went down and it was time to go inside.
I have a tendency to jump genres, my work spanning across young adult, historical, dystopian, romance, mystery, fantasy, and probably everything in between. I have no particular favorite that I love to read. If it’s a good story, well-written, with characters and prose that draw me in, I’ll be there.
THE MISS PERCY SERIES
MISS PERCY’S POCKET GUIDE TO THE CARE AND FEEDING OF BRITISH DRAGONS
Miss Mildred Percy inherits a dragon.
Ah, but we’ve already got ahead of ourselves…
Miss Mildred Percy is a spinster. She does not dance, she has long stopped dreaming, and she certainly does not have adventures. That is, until her great uncle has the audacity to leave her an inheritance, one that includes a dragon’s egg.
The egg – as eggs are wont to do – decides to hatch, and Miss Mildred Percy is suddenly thrust out of the role of “spinster and general wallflower” and into the unprecedented position of “spinster and keeper of dragons.”
But England has not seen a dragon since… well, ever. And now Mildred must contend with raising a dragon (that should not exist), kindling a romance (with a humble vicar), and embarking on an adventure she never thought could be hers for the taking.
***
THE SUNDERED VEIL SERIES
A dark apparition stalks the streets of Victorian London…Dorothea Hawes has no wish to renew contact with what lies beyond the veil. After an attempt to take her own life, she has retired into seclusion, but as the wounds on her body heal, she is drawn back into a world she wants nothing more than to avoid.
She is sought out by Julian Chissick, a former man of God who wants her help in discovering who is behind the gruesome murder of a young woman. But the manner of death is all too familiar to Dorothea, and she begins to fear that something even more terrible is about to unleash itself on London.
And so Dorothea risks her life and her sanity in order to save people who are oblivious to the threat that hovers over them. It is a task that forces her into a confrontation with her own lurid past, and tests her ability to shape events frighteningly beyond her control.
Young Dorothea Hawes finds herself bereft and alone, her parents buried amidst whispers of devilry and scandal. The voices that had plagued her had gone silent, and she hopes it will mean an end to the darkness that took her family. But the cold comfort of her new guardians soon takes on a dangerous edge, and Dorothea fears those entrusted with her safety have instead succumbed to a familiar horror.
Dorothea Hawes possesses an unusual gift. Spirits speak to her, tracing their ephemeral fingers along the edges of her thoughts, treating her to glimpses of other people’s fears and desires. It is a gift that puts her in demand, and brings her to the attention of Rachel Trask, a troubled woman desperate to make contact with the spirit of her deceased son. But it’s not until Dorothea has already pushed through the veil that she realizes Rachel’s sadness may be due to more than mere mourning…
***
A demonic assassin. A half-orc boxer. A ratman necromancer. Though they take many different shapes and forms, there are heroes all around us.
Bravery can be found in the most unexpected places: a subterranean dwarven city; the sands of a temple courtyard in Ancient Egypt; a besieged castle, a Victorian brothel, a goblin warren, the post-apocalyptic ruins of a demon-infested village. Heroes dwell in the shadows as well as the light; you just have to look a little harder to find them.
Who do they fight?
Some heroes challenge injustice in all its numerous guises, while others hunt monsters both human and bestial. Others battle inner demons, the ghosts of their past, their deepest nightmares – or even the gods themselves.
Why do they fight?
For glory? Sometimes. For honor? Perhaps. There are those who instinctively strive to protect those weaker than themselves, and there are others emboldened only by a sense of obligation, or the promise of wealth. Whether by the blade or other means, they endeavor to take down all who threaten what is good and right in their world.
By hook or by crook, through cunning or combat, with tooth and claw or iron and steel, they are all united in one goal, willingly or not: to live – and die, if necessary – a hero.
Choose your weapon. Fight for what you believe in. Never give up.
Nineteen fantasy writers gather to bring nineteen tales to life, each one a unique glimpse into a wholly original world.
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THE SCANDAL OF THE VICAR’S WIFE
For seven years, Julia Benton was trapped in a loveless marriage. Despite risking everything – even her very health – to be the wife and mother she thought her husband wanted, it was never enough. And when she is suddenly left a widow after a tragic accident, her life quickly settles into an obscure existence, alone and forgotten, watching her days slip away from her one by one.
When she stumbles across a free-spirited child one icy day, Julia is more than willing to take on employment as the girl’s governess. The child has no mother, and Julia has no means of supporting herself in her widowed state. But her employer is Alexander Halberd. Gruff and enigmatic, mourning the loss of a wife who died in the same accident as her husband, he seems at turns both distant and endearingly kind. And Julia cannot stop herself from thinking of what more there could be between them…
But secrets lie thick as dust in her new home. What she thought she knew of her dead husband might have been nothing more than a carefully constructed facade, and the things Alexander won’t tell her could destroy their growing passion before it even has a chance to begin.
***
Regan isn’t looking for a husband. She has her children to raise, an estate to manage, and the role of perpetually grieving widow to uphold. So when she stumbles into Thomas Cranmer, a man so young he is better suited for her own daughter than herself, she is shocked by the immediate spark of desire that ignites between them.
Thomas is indeed young, handsome, and not at all the sort of gentleman who should be catching her attention. But the lure of an affair with him is too tempting to ignore, even as rumors swirl about what sort of man he really is.
It’s not until Regan finds her heart is in danger that she wonders if there can be life beyond grief, and if someone can have a second chance at love…
***
Charlotte Claridge lives a life dictated by her stepmother’s whims. Sent to live with one family member and then another, she finally arrives in Scotland, on the doorstep of a crumbling estate abandoned by its owner. With her aunt, she spends her days mending curtains and peeling potatoes, a quiet existence that changes with the appearance of a carriage bearing a coat of arms.
From out of the carriage falls Hartley, also known as Lord Cowden. Drunk, unconscious, and bleeding, Charlotte and her aunt carry him into his ancestral home. As he recovers in Charlotte’s care, Hartley confesses to a crime that nearly sent him spiralling towards his grave. But can she entrust him with her own secrets while coaxing him back from the dead?
***
Ruined in her first season in London, she is given no choice but to wed her father’s pick for a husband, or be cast out from her home. Emily agrees to marry William Hazlitt, a man she hardly knows. But William remembers her. Growing up as a tenant on her father’s estate, he admired her from afar, their lives kept separate first by class, and then by loss.
Emily seeks to begin a new life with this quiet man to whom she finds herself wedded. But the scandal she escaped in London soon finds her again, the very man who destroyed her reputation threatening to tear down the happiness she’s found with her new husband. To keep from losing everything, she must either make a deal with a devil… or learn how to defeat one.
***
** 2018 RONE Award Nominee **
Can they put aside their differences for the sake of an innocent child?
Sophia has sacrificed everything for her younger sister, Lucy. She has removed them from the only home they ever knew, taken on the care of Lucy’s illegitimate son, George, and even assumed the role of a widow and mother in order to erase all hint of scandal from the boy’s birth. But rumor continues to follow them like the darkest of clouds, and Sophia must adapt to her new existence as a false widow with no prospects beyond the doors of her small cottage.
Lord Haughton will stop at nothing to prevent the slightest whiff of disgrace from tainting his family’s name. When he learns of his younger brother’s latest indiscretion-one that leaves a bastard child in his wake-Haughton rushes across the country to offer the boy’s mother a comfortable living in exchange for her silence about the child’s true parentage. But he arrives only to have his generous offer thrown back in his face by Sophia Brixton, a sharp-tongued and sharper-witted woman who proceeds to toss him out of her house. But just because he is banished from her home does not mean he is so easily banished from her life.
Quenby Olson 