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.
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
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
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.
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?)
At Thanksgiving, my holiday season began slow and easy, yet this week turned hectic. How does that happen? I plan for low-stress, and then the busy-ness crowds into these last few days.
We have the 12 Days of Christmastide before us, which will end on Epiphany, January 6.
Let’s start your Christmastide with my annual gifts, three free stories for the three Wise Men who will appear on Epiphany.
The Newest ~ 1st Free Story
Here’s the short story I finished on Monday before life became busy-busy: “A Wintry Light.”
The story features the lockpick Vic, five years after his first entrance into my story world. The story captures him in London when he reaches 16 and an unexpected crossroad.
December 1819 disrupts Vic’s place with his chosen family.
For five years Vic has ignored his criminal past in Liverpool. Life in London offered family warmth and a hopeful future.
Then a drastic change in the Hoppack household disrupts his life. The only solution he can think of requires him to strike out on his own. He’ll need money for that.
Desperate, he offers his lock-picking skills to the boss of London’s underworld—only to discover the boss has been waiting for an opportunity to exploit Vic.
My earliest short story, written as a challenge for myself, is properly called a novelette. “The Lion’s Den” was intended to be 7,000 words; it finished at over 17,000. It surprised me and taught me and changed my view of short fiction.
Escaping the Lion’s den needs more than a warrior angel.
Jack Portman had never forgotten Filly Malvaise.
Then she walked into his local pub and into the clutches of a loan shark.
Can he rescue her before she falls victim to evil?
With “Three Yule Feasts for the Faeries” I’m hiding as a collaborator with my other pen name, Edie Roones. This short story is a historical fantasy in my Wild Sherwood series and is in my first collection of short stories, Into Wild Sherwood.
After all the cooking I’ve done this week, I thought I would share a Medieval cook with you. I hope the ending is a surprise.
Will the cook become the final dish?
Yule, the worst time of year for Ellen Best. Few buy her breads at Market. No one will hire her for their Winter Feast.
Then a Faerie knocks at her door. Two dinners, he proposes, and a final feast for his duchess. After each, she’ll receive three purses, copper and silver and gold.
The fantasy trilogy Spells of Water, third in the Fae Mark’d World, is now finished. Find it on Amazon and at worldwide distributors.
Torrent of Evil / Storm of Spells / Venom of Dragons
Death. That was the omen that the crows and ravens brought to Inkeri, a half-Fae wielder of the elemental power of Water.
Deep in the desert Idros Ahdreide, men had lost their lives in battle against a strange evil. When Inkeri ventures to investigate, she encounters Baron Rhodren of the Bois Argent and his troop of men.
Rhodren’s king commanded him to investigate the disappearances of two troops and a caravan at the desert citadel of Saet’Idros Archais.
Available Now
Yet a presence watches their entry into the citadel, a presence more terrible than twisted sorcerers, their shape-shifting wyre, and a traitorous Dark Fae.
Both Inkeri and Rhodren sense the watcher, but neither anticipates the dire threat it represents.
How many will die before the missing are found?
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
If you enjoy elemental power battling twisted sorcery and cold steel clearing paths through magical monsters, then you will love the adventures in the Fae Mark’d World.
If you only need the third book in the series, here’s Venom of Dragons.
An Evil more Terrible than Twisted Sorcery Awaits Inkeri and Rhodren.
cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
Carved into the mountain’s rock, the citadel of Saet’Idros Archais is now the battleground between good and evil, elemental power and foul sorcery, and a sinister monster more terrible than a crazed Dark Fae.
Inkeri, Baron Rhodren and his men, and their new allies the Lucent Fae have defeated the sorcerers and their minion shapeshifters. Yet the Dark Fae brings more foes to the citadel, and the fight becomes desperate.
How can Inkeri and Rhodren win when evil’s battlefield is the mind?
Spells of Water was fun to write, but keeping everything fresh can definitely stump a writer. In the midst of chapters 4 and 6, I was firmly convinced I was stumped, but overnight the blockade was broken with ideas flooding out in the morning. Never say never is an old adage that is certainly true!
