When Constable Hector Evans returns to Chalmsley Court, he doesn’t expect the violent crime to be the murder of one of Lord Chalmsley’s guests.
His lordship wants a quick resolution, before gossip about the crime’s salacious nature and trap-like killing becomes widespread.
With no murder weapon, no identifiable clues, and no eyewitnesses, Hector has little to build a case. He has plenty of suspects, even when he realizes the murderer must be a woman.
The suspects
Even though other guests could have killed the man, Hector finds himself focusing on the Chalmsley family.
Was it compulsive Cordelia?
Obsessive Portia?
Mad Aunt Beth, who gives him riddling clues as snippets of ballads?
Hector would blame George, who grew up tormenting his sisters and torturing small animals, but George left two years ago for a rest-cure in Vienna. He can’t have returned, can he?
Or is it his lost love Bee?
Bee Seddars, the girl who broke his heart, is a distraction he doesn’t need, especially as she and her cousins are among those celebrating recent engagements. Bee is as lovely as he once thought her and seemingly the most rational member of the Chalmsley family, but he wonders if a few brief months so many summers ago could possibly give him an understanding of who she is.
The Problems
Hector can’t get Bee to open up about the Chalmsley family secrets. Unlocking those, he believes, is key to solving the murder. Yet she mistrusts him—while he thought she was the one who broke the trust between them, since she refused to write him after he was sent away to join the Bow Street Runners.
In his first twelve hours on the case, the murder scene is torched and the victim’s journal is burned.
In his second twelve hours, a second fiancé is murdered with the missing weapon. And Hector’s suspect lists remains an ell long and a grief wide.
With madness looking like the strongest motive and only circumstantial evidence to build his case, will Hector find the murderess before she strikes again?
Or will he discover his lost love Bee Seddars is causing bloody death?
He needs The Key to Secrets at Chalmsley Court.
View the trailer here:
A cozy mystery of 66,000 words, The Key to Secrets is the seventh entry in the Hearts to Hazard series of Regency mysteries. Each book is a standalone novel, complete unto itself, with loose interconnections of characters.
Constable Hector Evans was first introduced in The Danger to Hearts, the sixth Hearts in Hazards.
The Key for Spies ~ book 8 in the Hearts in Hazard series of historical mysteries/suspense.
Spies and traitors. Lies and treachery. Unexpected love where bullets fly.
One traitor destroys loyalty. What will two traitors destroy?
The British spy Simon Pargeter scouts the terrain for Wellington’s army in French-controlled Spain. Miriella de Teba ye Olivita, the famed Doñabella, wants to give him aid, but she must first find the traitor lurking in her band of guerillas.
Can Simon escape the French patrol hot on his trail? With Major Pierre LeCuyer actively seeking Doñabella’s identity, can Miri hold her guerrillas together long enough to get the information Simon needs? Can she locate the traitor before she is unmasked?
Or will the traitors reap the reward while Simon and Miri swing from a gallows?
Meet the protagonist Simon and one of the antagonists for The Key for Spies, a January release by M.A. Lee in her historical mystery / suspense series Hearts in Hazard.
1st April 1813, Thursday
Thieves night.
That’s what his older brother called it, back when they’d run together. They’d taken to the dark streets, smashed locks to steal pastries or sausages, pried open windows to climb into dark rooms, and stolen locked boxes with stashes of coins. He never knew who Mattias worked for. Belly stuffed with iced rolls or spiced sausage, he had trailed behind his brother. Until the gendarmes caught Mat with a hand stuck in the alms box.
Hidden behind a dark column, he’d frozen when the gendarmes appeared. Then black wings flapped before his face. He ran until his sides hurt and his too-tight shoes split along the worn sides. He’d abandoned his brother, a betrayal that had never left him.
The next day he ran on to Marseilles. There, he re-invented himself as Pierre LeCuyer.
The Key for Spies is an odd addition to the Hearts in Hazard series.
1st: It’s not set in England.
It isa Regency story, just in Spain. Our hero is a British liaison officer ~ a very British way of saying “spy”. Our heroine is a Spanish noblewoman … and a leader of guerillas, fighting against the French occupation of Spain.
2nd: It’s a novel of the Peninsular War.
Rather than a classic mystery, it’s a war story. We have the suspense of flying bullets and characters who are facing real jeopardy with the stakes not only themselves but the people around them.
We have a spy seeking the route that Wellington’s army will take to southern France.
We have traitors among the guerillas, willing to commit murder to protect their positions.
We have a heroine who can shoot a pistol with the best of her guerrillas.
We have her second-in-command who is lethal with his knife.
3rd: The Dash of Romance that is a part of the series is secondary to the war story.
Miriella and Simon do fall in love, but that love is threatened by the French leader of the garrison.
4th: The novel expanded on me and became an epic-length addition to the 12-book series.
I thought the story would be around 65,000 words. I struck a block around the 40,000 mark until I realized that Jesus Contreras needed his own plot arc (including his own love) in the novel. After I added in his scenes, I hit 65,000 words but hadn’t reached the 3/4 mark of the novel.
I continued writing … and everything was flying, flowing smoothly, but at 90,000 words the ending still had to be written.
At over 110,000 words, I finally neared the last bit of the novel. The Key for Spies is a tome!
Simon Pargeter crouched in the shade of a young pine as he waited to meet the partisans.
He had already waited a day longer than anticipated. Major Hugo Stively had assured Simon that he would be met, and he’d given the name of the leader of the partisans in this area near Vittoria.
“Esperanza. Some kind of noble.” Stively had said. “Name means hope in Spanish. They need hope, poor sods, with the French army tightening its grip.”
Even though they were only in mid-April, the heat of late afternoon shimmered on the bare rocks. A coronella basked on a razor-edged slab of granite. A fawn-colored crested bird with black and white markings hooted at Simon. When it realized he was not going to move, it flew under a scrubby bush and scratched about.
From M.A. Lee, we have two Regency mysteries with a dash of suspense.
From Remi Black, we have the second novella in the Fae Mark’d World series, Spells of Air.
We also have the audio Podcast fromThe Write Focus.
Mysteries Fused with Romance
First up, we have two of the three Keytitles in the Hearts in Hazard series. All three have strong male protagonists. With The Key for Spies, Lee also achieved 1.5 million published fiction words. With all the titles that she’s published since 2019, she’s over 2 million published words.
The third book in the subseries is The Key with Hearts. We’ll celebrate that novel in February.
On January 15, The Key for Spies.
Spies and traitors. Lies and treachery. Unexpected love where bullets fly.
One traitor destroys loyalty. What will two traitors destroy?
Here are three links.
View the trailer for The Key for Spies: https://youtu.be/Ehc7VxUxCp4
The ebook and paperback can be published at online distributors everywhere or ask for it at the library:
On January 25 is Remi Black’s To Charm the Wind, published in 2021 and now 2 years old!
To Charm the Wind has entered the terrible 2’s!
When Haven isn’t a Sanctuary—
When the untried wizard Orielle enters the Wilding on her journey to Iscleft Haven, she expects threats from bears and mountain lions, vipers and hornets.
Published January 31, 2021
She certainly doesn’t expect the creatures of legend: wraiths and gobbers, shape-shifting wyre, and the Dark Fae called the Kyrgy.
Grim, an outcast from Iscleft Haven, is the keen steel that stands with her against these dangers.
Yet when they reach the Haven, the elder arrests Grim. The Haveners aren’t interested in a renewed alliance with the Wizard Enclave.
Watch the bundle trailer here: https://youtu.be/PqjouEJtbjY
For Writers, the January series of The Write Focus.
January starts with a free opening scene.
Last year was Remi Black’s short story, “Godriana’s Font”. You can get the entire story free with this Book Funnel link: click.
The year before was M.A. Lee’s “The Lion’s Den”, also available as a freebie through Book Funnel: here.
This year, things are little hectic. (Okay, a LOT hectic.) If we manage the recording, it will be the opening scene from “The Poisoner and the Faerie Huntsman”. You can access the story as a freebie through Book Funnel: also here.
The starting series for 2023, our fourth season, is Discovering Characters. Enjoy!
Visit The Write Focus website for more information and links to every episode.
The Hearts in Hazard series
12 books set in the English Regency Era
Mystery & Suspense with a Dash of Romance
October 2015
That’s the Release Date for the first three books in the Hearts in Hazard series.
The Game of Secrets
The Game of Spies
The Game of Hearts
August 2020
the final Hearts in Hazard book released: The Hazard with Hearts.
Now ~
Time for the annual Celebration of Hearts in Hazard.
Which book is right for you?
I’ve never actually written down all this information. I’ve written snippets, but never the whole thing. So here it is ~
how the books are interconnected without being sequels.
which books have common characters.
which books follow a similar plot or a similar trope.
With Hearts in Hazard~
Each novel is complete and stands alone, but the series has interconnected characters among the books. Not ALL the books and not ALL the characters.
New couples confront the primary conflict for each book.
What are the 12 books in the Hearts in Hazard series?
Visit M.A. Lee’s page on this website for links for more information, to view a trailer, and to buy!
1. A Game of Secrets
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
2. A Game of Spies
3. A Game of Hearts
~ bundled as A Trio of Games.
4. The Danger of Secrets
5. The Danger for Spies
6. The Danger to Hearts
~ bundled as A Trio of Dangers.
7. The Key to Secrets
8. The Key for Spies
9. The Key with Hearts
~ bundled as A Trio of Keys.
10. The Hazard of Secrets
11. The Hazard for Spies
12. The Hazard with Hearts
~ bundled as A Trio of Hazards.
How are the Novels Interlinked?
1/2 ~ A Game of Secrets 1 leads to A Game of Spies 2. These two are the most like sequels: Kate & Tony and Josette & Giles will become good friends. The friendship of Tony and Giles started when they served in the military together and were both wounded.
2/3/11 ~ A Game of Hearts 3, featuring Rafe & Maggie and Connie & Roger, mentions one of the treacherous English traitors from A Game of Spies 2. That treacherous traitor will recur in The Hazard for Spies 11.
Also, the time frame for A Game of Hearts covers a month before A Game of Secrets to after A Game of Spies, and GSpies’ characters are mentioned in GHearts.
2/4/5 ~ Building on the characters in A Game of Spies 2 are The Danger of Secrets 4 (Gordon & Maddy) and The Danger for Spies 5 (Tony & Melanie).
The Danger of Secrets 4 was a joy to write. I laughed often at the repartee between Gordon & Maddy.
The Danger for Spies 5 has as its primary couple Eugenie & Charles.
1/6 ~ The Danger to Hearts 6 brings back Jess Carter from A Game of Secrets 1. Jess becomes protector of Agatha.
6/7/10/11 ~ The Key to Secrets 7 features Constable Hector Evans (in love with Bee). Hector first appeared as a secondary in The Danger to Hearts 6.
Hector re-appears as a side character (chief constable!) in The Hazard of Secrets 10 and The Hazard for Spies 11.
1/2/3/5/10/11 ~ The Hazard for Spies 11 concludes the “Capture French Spies” conflict of Game/Secrets 1, Game/Spies 2, Game/Hearts 3, and Danger/Spies 5.
The Hazard for Spies 11 features Conrad and Phinney. She was barely mentioned in The Hazard of Secrets 10.
10/11 ~ The Hazard of Secrets 10 and The Hazard for Spies 11 have a secondary plot with the children Vic, Elise, and Hank. The three are not the main focus.
Corrie & Jem carry the main plot in The Hazard of Secrets.
6/9 ~ A character mentioned in The Danger with Hearts 6 becomes one of the primary leads in Key with Hearts 9. Greville Myers has married Liza Corbett to access her wealth. This convenient marriage inconveniently causes murder.
8 ~ The Key for Spies 8, one of the least-connected of the 12, is a stand-alone novel set in Spain. No interconnected characters. We do have spies, but I wished to break the constant focus on England. I justified my wish by saying, “Well, it has spies.” Let’s pretend our Simon Pargeter is friends with Hector Evans.
Simon & Miriella carry the plot, but Jesus & Elixane are strong secondaries.
9 / 12 ~ The Hazard with Hearts 12 is another stand-alone, with no interconnected characters. With The Key with Hearts 9, The Hazard with Hearts 12 is most like the vintage gothics of Victoria Holt and Dorothy Eden, from the 1960s.
It’s another marriage of convenience, this time with Vivienne & Max.
What Else will Help me Pick a Great Read?
Do You Like Couples falling in Love? (Not Lust.)
All the books are for you.
Want a Strong Heroine? Or a Strong Hero who is not an Alpha Dog?
All the books are for you.
Do you like Murder Mysteries? A Puzzle to Solve?
A Game of Hearts
The Danger of Secrets
The Danger to Hearts
The Key to Secrets
The Key with Hearts
The Hazard of Secrets (begins as suspense then morphs into a murder mystery)
The Hazard with Hearts (both murder and suspense)
Do you like Suspense more than Murder?
A Game of Secrets
A Game of Spies
The Danger for Spies
The Key for Spies
The Hazard of Secrets (which morphs into a murder mystery)
The Hazard for Spies
The Hazard with Hearts (because murders happen long before the novel begins)
Like Former or Current Soldiers? Or a Story in Wartime, on the battlefront?
A Game of Secrets
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
The Danger for Spies
The Key for Spies
Like Early Law Enforcement?
A Game of Secrets
A Game with Hearts
The Danger to Hearts
The Key to Secrets
The Hazard for Spies
Want a Story with Spies?
A Game of Secrets
A Game of Spies
The Danger for Spies
The Key for Spies
The Hazard for Spies
Want a Smuggler Story?
A Game of Secrets
The Danger to Hearts
Want a Story with Nobles? (Earls and Marquesses and Barons are one of the primary characters: hero or heroine)
A Game of Spies
A Game with Hearts
The Danger of Secrets
The Key for Spies
The Key with Hearts
The Hazard with Hearts
Want a Story without Nobles? (Not the hero or the heroine)
A Game of Secrets
The Danger for Spies
The Danger to Hearts
The Key to Secrets
The Hazard of Secrets
The Hazard for Spies
Want a Marriage of Convenience Story?
A Game of Hearts
The Key with Hearts
The Hazard with Hearts
Want a High-Low Story? Someone of High Social Standing marries Someone Lower in Rank than them.
Nobles. No nobles. Law enforcement. Law breaker. Something for Everyone
A Game for Spies
A Game of Hearts
The Danger of Secrets
The Danger to Hearts
The Key to Secrets
The Key with Hearts
The Hazard with Hearts
Want a Story with a Runaway ?
A Game of Secrets
Want a Story with Children?
The Hazard of Secrets begins the story with Vic, Elise, and Hank, and it concludes in The Hazard for Spies.
Want a Story with a Young Couple?
A Game of Hearts
The Hazard for Spies
Want a Story with a Couple Approaching Middle-age?
A Game of Hearts
The Danger of Secrets
The Danger for Spies
The Danger to Hearts
The Key to Secrets
The Key for Spies
The Key with Hearts
The Hazard of Secrets
Want a Story set in a Foreign Land?
The Key for Spies
Want something like a Vintage Gothic?
The Key with Hearts
The Hazard with Hearts
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
This is all of the ways
to classify the 12 books in the Hearts in Hazard series.
If you can think of another, do write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.
Read them all, a book a month. (Wasn’t that a book club?)
sausages, pried open windows to climb into dark rooms, and stolen locked boxes with stashes of coins. He never knew who Mattias worked for. Belly stuffed with iced rolls or spiced sausage, he had trailed behind his brother. Until the gendarmes caught Mat with a hand stuck in the alms box.
