Blog

Mysterious Fields is coming!

In Uncategorized
2 months ago
M
Cover of Enchanted Net: A silhouetted man and woman in Victorian dress stand with their backs to the viewer. She is holding a glass of wine as they look toward each other. The background is a purple damask, crossed by pipes and gears and a streak of lightning, with a book inset in the top left corner.
Enchanted Net (out September 20th)
Cover of Silent Circuit: A silhouetted man and woman in Victorian dress face each other. He is holding a book open for her, as her hand moves to turn a page. They’re on a background of green damask with green pipes, a streak of lightning behind them. A bee is inset on top of a gear in the top left.
Silent Circuit (out November 15th)
Cover of Elemental Truth: A silhouetted man and woman in Victorian dress waltz hand in hand on a golden damask background bordered by pipes and gears with a streak of lightning behind them. A jeweled ring is set in the top left.



Elemental Truth (out December 13th)

It’s my first trilogy! One romance – and substantial plot – playing out over three books. I’m so excited to share Thessaly and Vitus’s stories with you – along with everyone else in these novels.

This trilogy is about finding the difference between what you’re told to want and what you actually desire. It’s full of siblings making different choices about how to love and support their brother or sister (or in one case, not.) It’s about the patterns that families make and uphold – some much better for everyone than others. And it’s about falling in love, finding a way through the difficult times together, and coming out into the sun with hope for the future. And it’s about how the spirit of invention and experimentation brings both great delights – and new threats.

Oh, and it’s also full of Council politics, six deaths, and a wedding.

(more…)
Read on

In Character: Orion Sisley

In In Character, Land Mysteries
4 months ago
I

Welcome to our next character study piece, this time about Orion Sisley. 

Orion is the stroppiest character I’ve ever written. He has good cause – especially in Illusion of a Boar when he’s coming out a completely horrific six months or so. For those not familiar with the term, it’s slang. The term became more common in the 80s, but is dated to use starting in 1943. It means rebellious, with an edge of ‘just plain difficult’, sometimes for baffling reasons. (Here’s the Etymology Online entry.)

This post contains plot spoilers for Illusion of a Boar, Orion’s romance. (Stop at “The War” of you want to avoid those.) 

Cover of Illusion of a Boar: Two silhouetted men and women standing at a table, on a ground of deep gold with an astrological chart behind them. Shown on a leather satchel with a pair of gold rimmed glasses.
(more…)
Read on

Cover Design: Mysterious Fields

In Mysterious Fields
4 months ago
C

For the last of our current series of posts about cover design, it’s time to share the covers for the Mysterious Fields trilogy. I love the elements Augusta pulled together to evoke just the right feeling for these covers.

A silhouetted man and woman in Victorian dress stand with their backs to the viewer. She is holding a glass of wine as they look toward each other. The background is a purple damask, crossed by pipes and gears and a streak of lightning, with a book inset in the top left corner. An amethyst sits beside the tablet with the cover.

Overall design : Mysterious Fields

Because these three books form a tight continuous trilogy (unlike any of my other books!) we really wanted the covers to fit well together. All three have the same basic elements:

  • Damask background (for the late Victorian feel)
  • Appropriate clothing! Augusta worked off a number of reference images for this.
  • Electricity (a key theme in the books)
  • An inset item
  • Silhouetted figures who – over the course of the trilogy – move from distance to togetherness.

And then we have the pipes, to lean a bit more into the gaslamp feel of these books. People are exploring the intersection of science and magic, not always with the best results.

(more…)
Read on

Cover design : Land Mysteries

In Land Mysteries, Writing and publishing
5 months ago
C

I’m back this post to talk about some of the choices that went into the cover design of the Land Mysteries books. As is visible, they take a different direction in some ways from my 1920s books. There are also a number of details you might not have spotted that I’ve been wanting to highlight!

One note that this post contains spoilers for key moments in the books (since that’s relevant to what’s on the cover). I’m avoiding talking about details here, as much as feasible. But if you want to avoid all spoilers, go have fun reading and come back when you’ve read the relevant books!

The cover of Old As The Hills displayed on a tablet in a scene of a glowing golden summer sunset, looking out over a pond surrounded by tree trunks. The cover of Old As The Hills has a man with a can and a woman silhouetted on a green ground with a map. She holds out her hand, he is putting something into it, forming a doorway between them. An astrological chart behind them shows the symbols for Venus, the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn highlighted behind a splash of glowing stars.
(more…)
Read on

Covers : Mysterious Arts

In Mysterious Arts, Writing and publishing
5 months ago
C

I absolutely adore my covers. Augusta Scarlett does a fantastic job figuring out how to come up with something that fits the genre, the historical period, and the feel of the book. Welcome to the first of three upcoming posts about our cover design, focusing on the Mysterious Arts covers.

Later this summer, we’ll have one about the Land Mysteries series. And finally, we’ll have a post about the covers for the Mysterious Fields trilogy. We’re starting with Mysterious Arts because they’re the simplest to talk about in several ways.

I’ve put the cover images in at Large size to make it easier to look at the details. Depending on your reading habits for this blog, opening them in a new tab might be easier.

(more…)
Read on

Summer reading challenges 2024

In Reading
5 months ago
S

Adult summer reading programs are getting going (at least up here in the United States…) As I’ve done twice before, here’s a list of my books that fit into specific categories. If you’ve got another category, let me know! Sometimes it’s a lot easier for me to pull a list than it is for readers to figure out all the books that might fit quickly.

For example, I recently added a list of characters by age to my wiki. Easy for me to pull together, involves more math for everyone else!

You can find previous related posts at Up for a 2024 reading challenge? and Summer (any time) reading for lists from 2023. Jump down to specific kinds of bingo squares with the links here.

Author | Type of book | Colours on the cover | Title | Characters | Setting | Other

If you’re looking for a challenge, I’m drawing from items on the following lists:

Upon A Summer's Day displayed on a tablet in a sunset scene looking out across water to fields beyond, all of it glowing golden and sparkling with magic. The cover of Upon A Summer's Day shows a man in a suit silhouetted over a map of northern Wales in a muted green. He is gesturing, holding his cane in one hand, a cap on his head. Behind him is an astrological chart, with Jupiter and Saturn highlighted in the sign of Taurus.

(more…)
Read on

Happy Pride! LGBTQIA+ Books

In Albion, Reading
5 months ago
H

It’s June again, and that means it’s Pride Month. As you likely know if you’re reading this, most of my books are M/F romances. But more than a few of them have queer or LGBTQIA+ content and characters!

Several include demisexuality (most of my books are also slow burn). A couple have main characters who are asexual and/or aromantic. There’s an F/F romance, a M/M one, and a couple with a MMF polyamorous relationship. And of course the “Enemies to it’s complicated” Best Foot Forward.

I’ve avoided big plot spoilers below. But of course there are some in talking both about people’s identities and orientations, and about which books that’s relevant in. Some additional characters can easily be read as fitting in the following categories. If they do for you, please read them that way!

I’ve a few more ideas coming! This post covers all of that. Plus it ends with a couple of recs of where to find other great queer romances.

Want a handy list of my books that are particularly LGBTQIA+?

loading

Or here’s Geoffrey, commenting on the state of his relationships and the people he loves, not always in easy to label ways.

“As I keep saying, if I am lucky, he will to the end of our days. See, I am already experienced in complicated relationships that no one understands. We’ve muddled along, far better than fine, for going on twenty years now.”

Geoffrey Carillon, Best Foot Forward, chapter 41
(more…)
Read on

What’s after The Land Mysteries

In Land Mysteries
6 months ago
W

It’s time for a teaser of coming attractions, following on in the late 1940s after the Land Mysteries series. The second section has some spoilers for Illusion of a Boar. 

Copy of Best Foot Forward lying on a wrinkled silk cloth, with a violin lying across it. The cover has a deep red background with map markings in a dull purple. Two men in silhouette stand, looking up at a point in the top left. An astrology chart with different symbols picked out takes up the left side of the image, with glowing stars curving up to the title.

The Land Mysteries

For a good while – several years – I was convinced I wasn’t going to write anything after the first half of 1929. I wasn’t as interested in writing the 1930s (especially the heart of the global Great Depression), and I also wasn’t sure about getting deeper into writing the Second World War.

And then I wrote Eclipse. Kiya left a marginal comment about wanting to see Geoffrey Carillon and Alexander Landry team up to take on munitions dealers. Every single one of my early readers commented on that idea and also wanted to see it. I gave in to the inevitable. As you do.

It took some more thinking, though. I didn’t want to do just one book, hanging out there at that chronological range. It felt unbalanced. So that meant thinking about what else I could write that was interesting in the Second World War. 

One of the things I realised early on is that as much as I wanted to write more romances, that it’s tricky to write romances actually during a war. (Not impossible, as the series proves, but it probably wouldn’t sustain a whole series sensibly). Getting people in the right place for long enough is tricky! 

But I also wanted to explore the other kinds of relationships people have in their lives. Sometimes that’s family. (Sometimes that’s enemies to “it’s complicated” to family.)  Other times it’s about mentorship. Sometimes it’s about professional commitments or goals that emerge and need doing. Sometimes it’s about chosen siblings and friendship. 

(more…)
Read on

Explore my blog posts

Explore posts about each book

Ancient Trust Appearances Authorial Wiki Best Foot Forward Bound for Perdition Carry On Casting Nasturtiums Chasing Legends Complementary Country Manners Eclipse Elemental Truth Enchanted Net Facets of the Bench Folklore and traditions Fool's Gold Forged in Combat Four Walls and a Heart Goblin Fruit Illusion of a Boar In The Cards Magician's Hoard Mistress Of Birds Nocturnal Quarry Old As The Hills On The Bias Outcrossing Pastiche Perfect Accord Point By Point Sailor's Jewel Seven Sisters Shoemaker's Wife Silent Circuit The Fossil Door The Hare And The Oak The Magic of Four Three Graces Treats And Extras Trellech Upon A Summer's Day Wards of the Roses Winter's Charms With All Due Speed WorldAnvil

Get in touch

My contact page has all the latest on where you can find me (and a form if you'd like to email me directly).