Gordon, Lord Musgrove, returns from A Game of Spies. He’s escaped from his mother’s garden party, at which she planned to trap him into a betrothal. Imagine his surprise when he meets the woman of his dreams while escaping his mother’s plans for his engagement.
Imagine his shock when murder occurs.
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Secrets of family. Secrets of hearts. Secrets of blood and pain.
Secrets can kill.
Maddy Whittaker, on the shelf for years, never expects the man of her dreams will be the one she once called a stick in the mud.
Banished from a country party so she won’t ruin her sisters’ chances in snaring husbands, Maddy is sent to visit a cousin named Simon Jespers, who is hosting his own Valentine’s party. She expects three weeks of boredom.
Gordon, Lord Musgrove, expects he will propose to a biddable lady and live unhappily ever after.
He escapes his mother’s country party (where the dowager Musgrove expects her only son to snare a wife) for one last bid at freedom. He decides to retreat to his friend Simon Jespers. Gordon never expects that his friend will be hosting a Valentine’s party. He does expect days and days of boredom.
Secrets of Hearts
On arrival at Jespers’ country manor, Maddy and Gordon meet for the first time. A quick flirtation finds them well matched in mind and soul, and the flirtation changes into romance.
Yet a secret from Maddy’s past threatens their future.
And a serial murderer threatens Maddy’s life.
Can Gordon overcome past secrets and present dangers to marry his perfect match?
The Dangers of Secrets is a romantic Regency suspense of approximately 56,000 words.
The character of Gordon, Lord Musgrove, was first introduced in A Game of Spies, published in the fall of 2015.
Warning: While the romance is sweet, the murders have been described as sordid. Unwanted memories of abuse may be triggered. Please be cautious.
Use these links for online distributors everywhere. The book is available as a paperback from Amazon.
First, we have a novella from Edie Roones: Historical Fantasy, part of the Wild Sherwood series.
The Hooded Outlaw brings us Robin Hood and his meeting with Maid Marianne.
One trap for Robin Hood, another for Lady Marianne
When Robin Hood escapes a trap set by the Sheriff of Nottingham, he never expects to meet the love of his life, Lady Marianne of d’Airsey.
The d’Airsey family received a manor and estate from King Richard himself. Yet the king is now imprisoned in Germany. His corrupt brother Prince John has placed his cronies in positions of power in England. One of those cronies is Baron Haughton, former holder of that estate.
Sheriff Maldeville and Lord Polleone plot with Baron Haughton to steal back his lands. The Faerie Aubrette and Gilbert Whitehand join Robin and Marianne to thwart them.
Yet how can outlaws and a disguised Faerie prevent Prince John from restoring the deeds to Baron Haughton?
A baffling murder interrupts a charming romance in The Danger of Secrets.
Maddy Whittaker pursues a flirtation with Gordon, Lord Musgrove, as a pleasant distraction from daily concerns. Then she encounters secrets of family, secrets of the heart, and secrets of blood and pain, all served up for Valentine’s Day at a country manor in Regency England.
Too bad for Maddy and Gordon that secrets can kill.
More than charm will be needed for Maddy to overcome past secrets and present dangers to marry her perfect match in The Dangers of Secrets, a Regency mystery, Book 4 in the Hearts in Hazard series.
Choose one of these links to reach online bookstores:
Elizabeth Fortescue comes to Feldstone Grange seeking the position of housekeeper. She expects the Baron Harcourt to claim she’s too
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young and pretty for the position, even though she’s qualified and has excellent references.
Yet the baron is desperate to hire someone, having lost five housekeepers over the past six months. He doesn’t know what drove them away.
On her first night at the Grange, Elizabeth encounters two ghosts. One is the well-known Silent Lady; none of the servants know anything about the other ghost.
Over the next week, her connection with Lord Harcourt becomes more than servant to employer. She likes her position and her employer. He also appears to like her, wanting to meet with her daily.
One ghost, though, persists in its haunting of her, enticing her to follow it.
Is it a real ghost? Is a fellow servant attempting to terrify her? Or does someone have a wicked reason to haunt the new housekeeper?
Elizabeth doesn’t know the answer—but she has more incentive to stay than leave.
Will she remain at the Grange? Or will the second ghost’s increasing hauntings drive her away?
Or lead her into death?
The Dark Lord is the first in a series of paranormal novellas from M.A. Lee, who writes historical mysteries and suspense with a dash of romance. This novella is first in the Miss Beale Writes series. They are best described as vintage gothics.
Like M.A. Lee’s Hearts in Hazard 12-book series, set in Regency England, the six novellas will be loosely interconnected, but each is a stand-alone story.
Choose one of these links to reach online bookstores:
A convenient marriage inconveniently causes murder.
Six months ago, Liza Corbett married Greville Myers. Her money saved his estate. His nobility raised her station. The couple have achieved an uneasy relationship, tepid and uncomfortable.
Then Liza is nearly killed in a failed attempt at murder.
Who wants her dead?
*The woman who had expected to marry Greville?
*The mother-in-law who hates her?
*Someone unknown?
*Or her husband, so he can keep her money and marry the woman he loves?
Who can Liza trust?
When the murderer strikes again and injures someone by mistake, how can Liza discover the truth? Or will she be the next victim?
The Key with Hearts is set in Regency England. At 59,000 words, the novel is Book 9 in the Hearts in Hazard series of romantic mystery and suspense by M. A. Lee.
Visit M.A. Lee’s author page on this website for a complete list of the Hearts in Hazard books.
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No ghostwriters, work-for-hire writers, artificial intelligence or other collaborators are used in the writing of Any book from Writers Ink Books. 😉
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 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.
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, second in the trilogy Spells of Air.
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.
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.
