Kate Charteris never expected to become a damsel in distress, yet she becomes just that when she must flee her cousin’s unwanted attentions.
Alone in Regency England, Kate’s parents are deceased, and her family friends remain with Wellington’s army in Portugal and Spain. Yet she is no damsel who faints at the first sight of a dragon-like trouble.
Hero Seeking a Spy
On the hunt for the lair of smugglers and spies for Napoleon, Tony Farraday never expected to fall hard for a damsel not quite in distress. He collides with Kate on a city street and feels instant attraction.
Yet Kate must catch the mail coach before it leaves, and Tony still needs orders from the spycatcher Giles Hargreaves.
Re-United in a Nest of Smugglers
Neither expects to meet again at a run-down inn on the English coast. On a crumbling cliffside, they vow to keep each other’s secrets and pretend to be strangers. Yet that initial spark still burns. Their attraction catches flame strongly and obviously, jeopardizing their pretense.
The French spy arrives, demanding immediate passage across the Channel to take vital information to Napoleon. Kate befriends the spy, but she is playing a dangerous game.
Tony hopes to delay the spy long enough for Giles Hargreaves to arrest her and the smugglers—only to be caught in a trap.
Yet More Trouble Arrives for our “No Damsel in Distress” and our War Hero
When Kate’s cousin arrives, can she evade him long enough to help Tony escape? Or have they both lost this Game of Secrets?
A Game of Secrets is a complete novel without a cliff-hanger, but the danger continues in A Game of Spies.
Digging into Death starts the Into Death series with the artist Isabella Newcombe.
Has the love of her life beguiled her straight into Death?
Cover Image by Deranged Doctor Design
What is Digging into Death?
Stranded on Crete, Isabella Newcombe finesses a refuge with English archaeologists resuming their dig after WWI. Her sketches fortuitously land her a job illustrating the dig for Prof. Gawen Tarrant. His magnetic brother Madoc charms her with his interest.
The dig seethes with undercurrents, revealed when a worker is murdered. The archaeologists dismiss his death as a village vendetta. Then the dig sites are vandalized. Artifacts go missing. And Isabella’s former employer may be involved in buying stolen artifacts. With evidence amassing, they must admit the worker was killed when he spied something incriminating—but what? And who murdered him?
Suspicions escalate. All three professors have motives beyond simple profit. Are the Tarrant brothers stealing to fund more digs? Is Nigel Arkwright undermining the dig as revenge for Gawen’s flirtation with Nigel’s wife? Is Monty Standings damaging Gawen’s reputation? Even the archaeological students could be involved, for their own profit or to assist a professor.
Falling in love with Madoc, Isabella doesn’t know who to trust. Then one of the students is murdered while his photographic archive is destroyed. With her illustrations as the only record of the artifacts, Isabella belatedly recognizes the dangers of Digging into Death.
Links to the Individual Novel.
All three novels in the series also available :: Digging into Death / Christmas with Death / Portrait with Death
Here’s a glimpse for Digging into Death, a post-WW I mystery set on the island of Crete.
Chapter 1 :: Saturday, October 4, 1919
If ever a maiden needed a hero, Isabella did.
Crete was the famed birthplace of Zeus, the god who granted supplicants’ prayers. Standing on the steps of the Heraklion Hotel, Isabella hoped her hero appeared before a blood sacrifice was necessary.
She plunked down her suitcase on the hotel steps and fanned her wide-brimmed straw hat. In ancient Crete the rulers had offered shelter and protection to strangers. Yet in the closed faces of the passers-by, intent on their errands, she did not see any hospitality offered to a foreign woman alone. She needed a recognizable and friendly face. She didn’t see one.
Men talking, engines sputtering, horns blaring, dogs barking, donkeys braying: after the hotel’s quiet, the cacophony assaulted her ears. Men poured past the steps with scarcely a glance at her. Most wore the dark Cretan jacket and loose breeches, although a few suits testified to modern Europe’s inroads on island culture. A few women in unrelieved black walked along the dusty road, but they ignored the lone foreigner on the hotel steps.
Isabella saw no one familiar and definitely no one who looked like the reincarnation of a protective god and certainly no one who could rescue a stranded governess.
October is a major celebratory month for M.A. Lee.
M. offers five books in October, starting her publishing career with three, adding a second series one year later, and offering non-fiction to help writers at all levels.
October is her Debut launch month with Three Books on the Same Day.
Cover Image from DDD
M. began self-publishing in 2015 with her first three novels in the Hearts in Hazard 12-book series.
As a rapid release (a term she now understands much better), she published the first three books in the Hearts in Hazard series all on October 21:
A Game of Secrets
A Game of Spies
A Game of Hearts
Purchase or View A Game of Secrets at these links:
In 2016, M.A. Lee started a new Historical Mystery series, set in 1919 after World War I.
Digging into Death with Isabella Newcombe is an artist at an archaeological dig on the island of Crete. In this novel she confronts thieves and a murderer.
Available on Amazon Kindle
Digging into Death published on the 1st of the month. Links are here:
the Fifth of Five Books in October: NonFiction for Writers
The Discovering series offers specific information in crucial areas every writer needs to understand. The series covers the entire novel, plot and characters, and the author brand. These five books were a focus in 2019.
Fifth and final book in the series, Discovering Sentence Craft, works at the base levels of sentences and words.
Need to understand irony?
Or allusion?
Or implied metaphor?
What about rhetorical structures like asyndeton, auxesis, and zeugma?
With clear explanations and examples, this guidebook explains the concepts and structures that help a writer shine, wax lyrical, or strongly present a debatable point.
With Discovering Sentence Craft, M.A. Lee reached over 2 million published words in a five-year period: 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019.
Two hearts with dangerous pasts are twisted up into complex schemes
The Hazard of Secrets
Can these two hearts keep their secrets, or will murder force them to reveal all?
Clarey Parton crosses the Atlantic to steal an inheritance. She hopes that no one discovers the rightful heir lies in a cold grave.
Jem Baxter returns to the England he fled three years before. He assumes the name James Axminster to conceal his past, one littered with misdeeds.
When a press gang sees two people traveling alone, they seize the opportunity for quick cash: they plan to sell Clarey to a brothel and impress Jem on a merchant ship. Fate brings these two lonely souls together. Chance helps them escape.
Yet escape traps them in another secret—one with murder as a bloody solution.
The Hazard of Secrets offers twists and turns as tight as knots.
Can Clarey and Jem keep their secrets, or will murder force them to reveal all?
Here’s the second chapter of the newest release by M. A. Lee, The Hazard of Secrets, historical mystery set in 1814 Liverpool, England, with just a dash of romance. Find it at this link.
Writers will tell you that sometimes characters take control of a story, and writers are just along for the write. That’s the case with Vic, a boy on the streets of 1814 Liverpool in M.A. Lee’s newest historical mystery. I liked Vic so much I might even ask him to write another story with me. Find Vic’s introduction at this link.
This is the book that became ever-expanding, blowing past the original length of 70,000 words, climbing on to 88,000 words, and then achieving 109,000 words.
I kept thinking about dividing it out, but events at the beginning cause events in the middle and connect to events at the end.
And I hate to read cliff-hangers which require two separate books. Better to have the cliff-hangers at the end of chapters!
1st, its publication, #10 in the Hearts in Hazard series.
Second, this novel kept expanding and expanding. The word count was intended to be around 70,000. I blew past 70,000 then 80,000 then 95,000 and kept going. The final book topped out at nearly 109,000 words when I published it on September 2, 2019.
Jem and Clarey face press gangs and murderers.
Two hearts with dangerous pasts ~
Can they keep their secrets, or will murder force them to reveal all?
Clarey Parton crosses the Atlantic to steal an inheritance. She hopes that no one discovers the rightful heir lies in a cold grave.
Jem Baxter returns to the England he fled three years before. He assumes the name James Axminster to conceal his past, one littered with misdeeds.
When a press gang sees two people traveling alone, they seize the opportunity for quick cash: they plan to sell Clarey to a brothel and impress Jem on a merchant ship. Fate brings these two lonely souls together. Chance helps them escape.
Yet escape traps them in another secret—one with murder as a bloody solution.
The Hazard of Secrets offers twists and turns as tight as knots.
This collection combines novels 10, 11, and 12 that finish the Hearts in Hazard series.
1st Novel ~ The Hazard of Secrets, with thedetails above.
2nd Novel ~ The Hazard for Spies
Can Conrad discover the identity of the French spy mastermind? Will Phinney’s single-minded pursuit lead her into the murderer’s snare? Will three children be caught and sold into London’s underworld?
Can Conrad and Phinney discover the connection between past and present murders? Or will two bullets allow the murderer and the French master spy to continue their work against the British government?
3rd Novel ~ The Hazard with Hearts
Vivienne Northrup agreed to a marriage of convenience to reap the benefits of becoming the Countess of Sheldrake. While she explores the ruins of Sheldrake Castle, a falling stone dislodged from a tower nearly kills her.
Only then does Vivienne discover that the earl’s previous two wives died tragically. The first had jumped to her death from that very tower.
Or had the woman been pushed? The way the stone nearly killed Vivienne?
While I love all three of these books in A Trio of Hazards, this final book became a bit of a challenge. I struggled with the heroine … until I changed her name. Then she came alive!
In finishing this novel, which finished the entire Hearts in Hazard series, I was saddened. The characters had become part of my family. Moving on from the series was like moving far away from family. I know that I will want to return.
The bundle makes it look like we have more books available … and we do!
Individual novels are also available in ebook and paperback.
two More books for September Are nonfiction guidebooks for writers.
In the summer of the Plague Year, 2020, words were bouncing around like bunnies.
These two guidebooks and a couple of works were fiction, all completed in the summer,are the evidence. I’m not counting the collection above. Bundling books together is actually very simple, requiring little creativity. Writing the books, whether fiction or nonfiction, that requires LOTS of creativity.
3rd of the 4 Books ~ Discovering Characters
Our job as writers is to find every detail of our characters then use snippets so our readers will see our characters as they drive through our books. We hint at the foundations while opening doors to their plans and purposes.
Discovering Characters is designed to help writers find the exteriors and interiors, public and private. We’ll dig around the foundations and climb to the roof. We’ll explore the open rooms and the storage closets. And we’ll peek into rooms inhabited by such characters as diverse as Elizabeth and Darcy, the Iron Man, Aragorn and Frodo, Travis McGee, Medea, Macbeth, and Nanny McPhee.
Five areas comprise this guidebook. Just as characters—and houses—are individual, this info is individual. You won’t need every bit. Dip in and out, skim around. When you reach locked rooms, come back and explore to discover the keys to your characters.
Starting Points ~ offering templates and character interviews
Classifications ~ common and uncommon ways of discovering characters
Relationships ~ couples, teams, allies, enemies, mentors, etc.
Special Touches ~ progressions, transgressions, and transitions for character arcs
Significant Lists ~ archetypal characters and much more
Discovering Characters, with 44,000-plus words, is the second book in the Discovering set, part of the Think like a Pro Writer series for writers new to the game as well as those wanting to up their game.
4th of the 4 Books ~ Discovering Your Author Brand
Discovering Your Author Brand understands that the browsing readers will only give a few nanoseconds to our books.
So, we explain the three main glances that hook the readers before they swim down the river. We also look at the keys to unlock those glances. With the right keys, the brand is revealed, and the door to the reader opens.
To help with the keys and glances, we have worksheets (charts!) to help you discover the brand for book, series, and your author persona—because the first leads to the last.
In addition to analyzing successful brands by writing greats from the last of the 20th century, we have information on how to develop a video book trailer. You can watch our own trailer for our book on Branding at this link: https://youtu.be/uthI5gEWic8
Fetch this guidebook at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL8GBM1
The Discovering series offers specific information in crucial areas every writer needs to understand. The series covers the entire novel, plot and characters, and the author brand. These five books were a focus in 2019.
