The Mourning Rose

Manners meet magic in this tale, where curses mix with curtseys, and Charm takes on a whole new dimension. Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen fans will love this romantic fantasy, set in a Regency that never was. Eglantine Mayland is this Season's Reigning Toast, and seems destined to make a good marriage. When the wealthy Lord Valremer, a confirmed bachelor, begins to court her seriously, Eglantine's cousin Polyantha senses that not all is well. Too many of his actions seem to be part of a web of evil that twines itself around the Mayland family. And why is a well-known rogue and smuggler so interested in their plight?

Morgan Smith has been a goatherd, a landscaper, a weaver, a bookstore owner, a travel writer, and an archaeologist, and she will drop everything to travel anywhere, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Writing is something she has been doing all her life, though, one way or another, and now she thinks she might actually have something to say.