It’s Anniversary Day for The Hazard for Spies.

Disguised to Spy.

A young constable tracks treacherous traitors.

A spinster hopes to find a killer.

Will murder destroy their chance for love?

Conrad Hoppock left his village and the girl he secretly loved for a chance at a better livelihood. He joined the London constabulary and began working with the Bow Street Runners. Now he hunts the master spy stealing information for Bonapartist France. His search sends him undercover in a lawyer’s office.

When Phinney Darracott’s sister and brother-in-law died, their children whispered “murder”. She dismissed that claim as unreasonable terrors caused by the tragic loss. Yet after repeated burglaries and an arson that destroyed their home, Phinney believed the whispers. Now she wants justice for their murders.

The clues lead her to London. There, she disguises herself as a cleaning maid for the very law office where Conrad is disguised as a clerk. Phinney’s young niece Elise and the street urchin Vic secretly pursue a different tangle of clues to the murders.

In the night hours, when all is still, Phinney prowls for the evidence. Then she encounters Conrad.

And the lawyer at the center of the tangle of clues is shot dead while they watch from their hiding place.

Can Conrad discover the identity of the French mastermind? Will Phinney’s single-minded pursuit lead her into the murderer’s snare? Will the children be caught and sold into London’s underworld?

Will they 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?

The Hazard for Spies is Book 11 in M.A. Lee’s Hearts in Hazard series of Regency mysteries and suspense. The novels are loosely connected, and each story is complete in one book.

Vic the lockpick and Phinney (disguised as Mrs. Coates) were minor characters in The Hazard of Secrets. Chief Constable Hector Evans, who returns here after his inclusion in The Hazard of Secrets, had his introduction in The Dangers to Hearts and received his own story in The Key to Secrets. The fight against French spies on British soil began with the first Hearts in Hazard

Find it here, ebook or paperback, from online distributors everywhere

OR Amazon.

View the Trailer here:

 

 

The Dangers to Hearts

Do broken hearts destroy all dreams?

Or will murder destroy the dreams?

 

 

Years ago, Agatha Helmes’ lover abandoned her.  When her baby died at birth, she thought all her hopes for the future had ended.

She poured herself into her family’s farm, but in the last year, mismanagement by three different stewards has the farm losing more money than she can pour into it.

Jess Carter occasionally crewed for a known smuggler to bring a little extra into his home.  He fell for a maid working at the Hawthorn Inn.  Then the smuggling ring was arrested. 

The woman he thought he loved married another man.  With a bruised heart for company, he packed up all his possessions and left his home.

Not knowing where to go, Jess consulted the smugglers’ fence Richard Helmes who directed him to Helmes Farm to assist the current steward.  His cousin Agatha Helmes, he says, will hire anyone he sends to her.

When Jess arrives, the current steward is assaulting Agatha.  He routs the old steward and finds himself in a job he doesn’t understand, taking advice and orders from a woman.

Agatha knows only one thing about her new steward:  he doesn’t lie.  Jess admits what he knows and doesn’t know about farming.  He admits that he is avoiding arrest for smuggling.  That is more than she can say about her former stewards and her former fiancé.

Trust between Agatha and Jess grows from a seed to a mighty oak.  Attraction entwines them with compatibility and grows the first tendrils of love.

Then the steward’s cottage is set on fire, and Jess barely escapes.

The burned house reveals an old murder as the bones of Agatha’s former lover are discovered—with a bullet hole in the skull.

And the deed to Helmes Farm and other documents go missing.

With Agatha’s cousin trying to steal her farm, can Jess reveal her cousin hired him to watch out for his interests?

Will the constable investigating the new arson and the old murder think Agatha guilty of murdering her lover when he wouldn’t marry her?

And will their new love survive the questions and confusion?

The Dangers to Hearts is a sweet romantic suspense of approximately 50,000 words.  While the novel is the sixth in the Hazards to Hearts series, it is complete and contains no cliffhangers.  The character of Jess Carter was introduced in the first Hearts in Hazard book, A Game of Secrets.  Reading that novel will enrich your experience, but it is not necessary.

View the trailer

Purchase at online book distributors like Kobo and Barnes & Noble, Apple and Google, and many others. 

Or head over to Amazon for the Kindle ebook or paperback version.

 

1st Short Story in the Sailing with Mystery anthology

featuring Isabella Newcombe Tarrant from the Into Death series.

Aboard the Passenger Ship Nomadic

A short story mystery featuring Isabella Newcombe Tarrant from the Into Death series.

Amber Dreams ~~

Blackmail threatens a young bride when her secret diary is stolen. Her marriage of convenience is threatened if the contents are revealed to her new husband and his autocratic mother.

Can Isabella recover the diary before the bride loses all hope?

Find the individual short story at these links:

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1YG2J6Q

Books2Read  https://books2read.com/u/3yWAAl

The “Amber Dreams” cover represents the rocky coasts that Isabella would have seen along the French and Spanish coastlines during her ocean voyage.

Visit this website for the first section and more links. https://maleebooks.blogspot.com/2025/02/amber-dreams-opening-and-links.html

Sailing With Mystery ~ the short Story Collection

Travel presents opportunities to meet new friends and see new places. And confront DANGER!

Follow Isabella through the Mediterranean Sea and into the Indian Ocean as she sails from England to India … and encounters puzzling crimes and mysterious intrigue.

All five short stories are available in the collection.

Link for Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1YG2J6Q

Link to Wide Distribution ~ Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/3yWAAl

A Word on the Covers: My designers manipulate stock photos to create vibrant colors. Few images are available that present 1921 accurately. Rather than be limited in cover choices, we avoided that problem and chose to emphasize Isabella’s art. Five similar watercolor images became the covers for the short stories, each one symbolically depicting the story’s conflict or theme or setting. Finding those similar images became the next design challenge.

The cover for the collection Sailing with Mystery echoes the covers for the original three-book series Into Death. The ocean and the railing of the ship depict her location while the tumultuous sky echoes the mysteries she encounters while aboard the passenger ship.

Enjoy!

The Into Death series:

Digging into Death ~ Love and murder on an archaeological dig. Has the love of her life beguiled Isabella straight into death?

Christmas with Death ~ An English country manor offers Christmas merriment, miracles, and murder. Will Isabella be the next victim?

Portrait with Death ~ When murder paints with blood, will Isabella and her new friend Flick discover that the murderer? Or will the murderer stop them?

Collected into Into Death

LINKS:

https://books2read.com/u/baDN1L

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MRBNCH7

Available ebook and paperback

Spring is bursting forth, birds are twittering around,

… and allergies have started.

Time for April Book Birthdays!

discover with one click!

By Dejan Krsmanovic - Birthday Cake Details, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134047258
Who doesn’t want chocolate cake? Image free from Wikimedia Commons, see alt text for attribution

 

 On April 1st ~ Writing Craft!

Discovering Your Writing

The epic journey for all writers is discovering the many areas of our writing craft.

Characters.

Plot.

Branding.

Sentence Craft.

A ready-reference to build your writing career. Designed for writers at any skill level.

One-click link for the book description, trailer, and purchase.

 

April 5 ~ Fantasy!

Spells of Aircover by Deranged Doctor Design

On a mission for the Wizard Enclave, Orielle ventures into the Wilding, a strange frontier filled with magical creatures. There she discovers sprites and wraiths, gobbers and wyre, and the mysterious Dark Fae called the Kyrgy.

All view her as prey.

What can you expect from this trilogy? Elemental magic. Dangerous Dark Fae allies. Treacherous shape-shifted. A twisted sorceress.

This book bundles the three novellas, To Wield the Wind, To Charm the Wind, and To Curse the Wyre. 

Amazon has the ebook and paperback options. Worldwide is ebook only.

LINKS:

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Spells-Air-Fae-Markd-World/dp/1737422646/
Worldwide https://books2read.com/u/mlq96v

View the Trailer here: https://youtu.be/PqjouEJtbjY

April 9 ~ Traditional Regency Mystery

The Dangers to Hearts

What can possibly go wrong in an idyll? Arson uncovers a baffling murder from the past. 

When Agatha’s lover abandoned her years ago, she poured herself into her family’s property, Helmes Farm. Mismanaged by three stewards, the estate suffers financial trouble. Agatha needs someone honest to help.

Jess Carter evaded arrest for smuggling. The smuggler’s fence offers him a job at Helmes Farm. When Agatha hires Jess as her new steward, his loyalties are divided.

Then hatred burns into a fire in the night. The arson reveals an old murder. The vanished fiancé didn’t leave—he was murdered.

Who is the arsonist? Who is the murderer? Are the arsonist and the murderer the same person? Or have two people been poisoned by hatred?

Troubles past and present swirl around destructive hatred in this twisty romantic mystery.

LINKS

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y59XB7N

https://books2read.com/u/31qlQ7

View the trailer. https://youtu.be/kFhnthIuYks

April 30 ~ Another Traditional Regency Mystery

The Hazard for Spies

Disguised to Spy

Conrad Hoppock works with the Bow Street Runners to locate a French master spy. His search sends him undercover in a firm of solicitors.

Phinney Darracott wants justice for the murders of her sister and brother-in-law. Clues lead her to a firm of London solicitors. Disguised as a cleaning maid, Phinney prowls for the evidence. There she encounters Conrad.

Then the lawyer at the center of the tangle of clues is shot dead while they watch from hiding.

Will Phinney and Conrad discover the connection between past and present murders ~ or will they face two bullets?

LINKS

https://books2read.com/u/4j2JEl

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087WJ8TJD

View the Trailer https://youtu.be/YrnFtNhzwQs

 

All cover images by Deranged Doctor Designs!

The Danger for Spies brings back the character of Toby Kennitt from A Game of Spies. 

The Dangers for Spies

Released March 10, 2017

Past actions cause present dangers.

The French spy, a double Agent

Eugenie DesChamps thinks she is safe, hidden in the English village of Little Houghton.  She paints landscapes to supplement her income.  She embarks on a flirtation with Charles Audley.  To her the world seems radiant, so very different from eight years ago.

No one knows that she once was a toast of Paris, a pretense she used to acquire information to pass on to English spies.  Eugenie hated the corrupt French government that had caused the deaths of her family.  Then a French agent discovered her double game.  She barely escaped with her life.

The English Spy, Undercover

Eight years ago, Tobias Kennit worked with Eugenie, stealing information about Napoleon’s troop movements.  Then their operation crashed.  He fled, believing that Eugenie was executed as a traitor to her home country.  Toby abandoned his undercover spying and became a gamester and a rake.

Yet now the English spycatcher Roger Nazenby has approached Toby once more.  He wants him to protect a cryptographer living in the village of Little Houghton.  French spies have infiltrated England to capture Charles Audley and return with him to France.  Toby agrees to the assignment only because the woman he wants to marry (Melly Ratcliffe) lives in that village.

The Master Cryptographer

Charles Audley returned to his home village for peace and quiet after stressful years in London developing a series of ciphers for English agents.  His latest ciphers led to English victories in the Peninsular War. 

In Little Houghton, he is charmed by Eugenie DesChamps, a mysterious French artist.  Their flirtation distracts him from his cryptography, but he feels no guilt whenever he is in her company.

Lives Collide

When Toby sees Eugenie, he is shocked.  Eugenie is not dead, and he wants answers from a woman he thought was a double agent.  Is she in Little Houghton to help kidnap the cryptographer?  She convinces him that she is not—but who is the threat to Charles Audley?  And can they protect Audley when they do not know when or where the attack will strike?

And Danger Returns

French agent Didier Poulaine has spent eight years weaving together the snippets of threads to help him locate the only two spies who ever escaped him:  Eugenie de la Croix and an Englishman masquerading as a French military officer.  He tracks them to Little Houghton, the location of the cryptographer he came to England to kidnap—or kill.

Poulaine’s threads have woven together.  Three lives intersect again and involve a fourth.  Blood will be shed before the past is purged.  Whose blood?

Investigate more: Click here.

The Dangers for Spies is a romantic historical suspense set in Regency England, part of the Hearts in Hazard series.  While this novel and The Game of Spies have interconnected characters, D4Spies is a complete work on its own.  However, readers will have a richer experience if they have also read The Game of Spies

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