Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons – Preview the First Three Chapters!

On October 26th, my next fantasy novel will be released! Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons) is a tale that combines my love of Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Good Omens, LM Montgomery (and more!… oh jeez) in a – hopefully! – funny and sweet tale about Miss Mildred Percy and the dragon she inherits.

To sum up:

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.

So!

That’s that.

But now I want to give you a look at the first three, complete chapters of Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (lest anyone feel unsure whether or not this book is for them). And… that’s about it! Enjoy!

(Pre-order here! https://www.amazon.com/Percys-Pocket-Feeding-British-Dragons-ebook/dp/B097GF4Z1H)

  Chapter One

It was once a commonly-held belief that dragons were nothing more than creatures pocketed into the realm of myth and fairytale. But man also once believed the Earth to be flat, and that we sat with prim and unswerving confidence at the center of the universe.

Now it is merely man himself who believes himself to be seated at the center of everything. And – oh! – what a precarious position to maintain when that previously dismissed realm of myth and fairytale chooses to kick your chair out from under you. 

-from the Prologue to Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons)  

Great Uncle Forthright was dead, and Mildred’s toast had gone soggy on one side. 

It wasn’t the most pleasant of ways to begin one’s day. The death more than the toast, of course, though Mildred had only spare memories of her Great Uncle Forthright and the soggy toast rushed into the lead as an immediate impediment to her current happiness. 

But there was an edge to Diana’s tone as she read over the letter—Mildred’s letter, but her sister had plucked it up from the top of the pile and slit into it with her knife as if things like addresses and private communications were irrelevant—that had brought with it the news of Great Uncle Forthright’s more-than-timely demise. Her words dropped like pebbles into still water, creating ripples that would no doubt have an effect on the rest of Mildred’s day.

Ah, well. Perhaps the soggy toast would have to relinquish its early victory.

“Who is Great Uncle Forthright?” It was Belinda who asked, the only one of the Muncy children permitted to speak-without-being-spoken-to at the breakfast table. 

(Belinda was seventeen years old and on her way towards being engaged to marry one Mr. Bertie Sampson. That is, if Mr. Sampson could be convinced that his own future happiness depended not on the liveliness of various Great Uncles or the humidity of his morning baked goods, but rather on being permanently attached to a woman who may or may not have “accidentally” set fire to Cynthia Bowlin’s hair when the rumor went ‘round that Mr. Bertie Sampson planned on asking Miss Bowlin to dance two country dances with him at Mr. and Mrs. Carvin’s ball one month prior.)