Two hearts with dangerous pasts are twisted up into complex schemes in this 10th book of the Hearts in Hazard series ~ The Hazard of Secrets.

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?

  1. Read the first chapter at this link.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

And watch the trailer: 

 

This is the book that became ever-expanding, blowing past the original length of 55,000 words, climbing on to 78,000 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!

 

Available Worldwide as an ebook https://books2read.com/u/4DWRJr

 

Available ebook and paperback on Amazon

 

 

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.

 

Spring is bursting forth,

birds are twittering around,

… and allergies have started.

Time for the April Book Birthdays!

photo by Magnus Manske, from Creative Commons

Celebrate! And discover more with one click!

On April 1st ~ Writing Craft!

Discovering Your Writing. Characters. Plot. Branding. Sentence Craft. A ready-reference to build your writing career.

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

April 5 ~ Fantasy!

The bundled series Spells of Air. Elemental magic. Dangerous Dark Fae allies. Treacherous shape-shifted. A twisted sorceress.

Find it here.

April 9 ~ Traditional Regency Mystery

The Dangers to Hearts

What can possibly go wrong in an idyll?

Arson uncovers a decade-old murder. Agatha’s vanished fiancé didn’t abandon her; someone murdered him.

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

Explore here and purchase here.

April 30 ~ Another Traditional Regency Mystery … with a bit of suspense!

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?

Explore … and purchase!

Conrad and Phinney
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

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

View the Trailer:

 

 

Here’s Chapter 1 of The Key with Hearts, available now at online distributors everywhere: Amazon / Kobo / B & N & many more.

Chapter 1

Friday, 3 September 1813 ~ Myers Buckland manor and estate in Wiltshire, England

 

The little dog nosed along the edge of the bricked planters.  His white tail wagged, excitement quivering through his whole body.  He sniffed at every speck, whether dirt or leaf or twig.  Brightly colored ribbons, tied tightly together to create a long leash, trailed over his back and the terrace’s paving stones.

His sniffing increased.  He growled.  His short nose swept across the slate-colored pavers.  He retreated several steps as he tracked the scent, then followed it back to the grass.  The clipped grass tickled his nose.  He strained against the ribbon leash as he dug at the stones, as if the pavers were the edge of a cairn hiding a vicious rodent.  Then his head popped up.  Ears pricked forward.  Dark eyes stared at the high hedge with its thick branches of boxwoods.

He glanced behind him at the woman holding one end of his tether.  They had ended their walk by traversing the maze.  Throughout their tour of the garden, she seemed distracted, barely attending to his tugs on the leash.  Now her gaze focused on the drive that swept from the parkland.  The gravel turned into a gentle curve as it approached the manor’s forecourt.  The little terrier sniffed the air.  Then he lunged forward.

The leash held him back.  He strained against it then lunged again, but his paws didn’t find grass beneath him.  His claws scrabbled on the pavers.  He barked.

Continue reading “W.Ink Glimpse of The Key with Hearts”