This is an ongoing series. I have four more novels coming out in 2024, and will add them to this page as I send the finished drafts to the publisher. The concept was to take elements from traditional fairy tales and reinterpret them as Regency Romances, but with no magic, the fairy tale elements reinterpreted into natural happenstance, and the roles of hero and heroine reversed. As the series name says, A Twist Upon a Regency Tale. (Thank you to Caroline Warfield for suggesting the name.)
So far, I’ve had:
- Lady Beast’s Bridegroom – Beauty and the Beast
- One Perfect Dance – Cinderella
- Snowy and the Seven Doves – Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
- Perchance to Dream – Sleeping Beauty
- Weave Me a Rope – Rapunzel
- The Sincerest Flattery – The Goose Girl
- Inviting the Wild – Little Red Riding Hood
- The Worth of an Earl (in Hot Duke Summer) – Aladdin
- Hold Me Fast – The Ballad of Tam Lin
- The Trials of Alaric – The Princess and the Pea
Also, in the Lyon’s Den Collected World, I’ve had:
- The Talons of a Lyon – The Frog Prince
- Crossing the Lyon (in Night of Lyons) – Rose Red and Snow White
- Hook, Lyon and Sinker – The Little Mermaid
- Thrown to the Lyon – The Tinder Box
And I’ve just signed a contract for four more.
Meanwhile, here are the blurbs of the first four novels, with the gorgeous covers by Dar Albert.
Lady Beast’s Brid
egroom
Book 1: February 2023
A reclusive bride. A reluctant fortune hunter.
Lady Ariel lives retired in the country after being badly scarred by a fire that killed her mother and brother. Society gossips about her and calls her Lady Caliban, or even Lady Beast.
Her second cousin, who inherited her father’s title but not his private wealth, wants to have her committed so he can manage—and steal—her fortune.
Only finding a husband will prevent the cousin from having his way
Peter, Lord Ransome, has inherited his father’s debts along with responsibility for a stepmother who loathes him, her daughters, and his own two half-sisters.
Only a wealthy bride will save his estate and his family, especially the sisters who have fled his stepmother.
Once wed, the Beau and the Beast find they have more in common than they thought, but their accord is shaken when their enemies rouse Society and the rabble against them.
In their struggles to survive deadly hatred, they find that their marriage offers more than they bargained for.
One Perfect Dance
Book 2: May 2023
Regina Paddimore puts her dreams of love away with other girlish things when she weds her father’s friend to escape a vile suitor who tries to force a marriage. Sixteen years later, and two years a widow, she seeks a husband who might help her fulfil another dream—to be a mother.
Elijah Ashby escapes his abusive step-family as soon as he comes of age, off to see the world. Letters from his childhood friend Regina are all that connects him to England. Sixteen years later, now a famous travel writer, the news she is now a widow brings him home.
Sparks fly between them when they meet again. Regina begins to hope for love as well as babies. Elijah will be happy just to have her at his side. However, Elijah’s stepbrothers are determined to do everything they can—lie, cheat, kidnap, even murder—so that one of them can marry Regina and take her wealth for themselves.
Love and friendship must conquer hatred and spite before Elijah and Regina can be together.
Snowy and the Seven Doves
Book 3: August 2023
Abandoned in the slums when he was little, Snowy has grown up in the House of Blossoms, a brothel owned by the seven prostitutes (soiled doves) who rescued him from the streets. As his twenty-fifth birthday approaches, his foster-mothers tell him the truth of his origins, and of the enemy who stole his birth right.
They have a plan for him to take his rightful place in Society, alongside a renowned countess whose kindness and courtesy surprisingly overturn all his preconceptions about the selfishness of the aristocracy.
Margaret, Countess Charmain, balances her duties to her estate and her people with practicing the herbal medicine her mother taught her. When an errand of mercy takes her into the slums, and Snowy rescues her from attack, she incurs an obligation to the chivalrous but surly fellow. She will discharge it by letting the arrogant man escort her to a few social functions.
Beneath the mask each wears, they discover a person to love and a bright tomorrow neither thought possible. But to claim it, they must overcome the villains who destroyed their pasts and would steal their future together.
Perchance to Dream
Book 4: scheduled for publication in September 2023
Pansy Turner has reformed her life in the years since she tried to help her mother to destroy her step-brother. Eschewing social position and forgetting dreams of marriage and her own home, she is content with space to breed roses and her status as a favourite sister and aunt.
Life is better than she deserves.
John Forsythe has abandoned London for the furthest reaches of England after a series of betrayals have left him with the shame of a very public divorce, a poor opinion of Society ladies and a heart armoured against love. He spends his days with his daughter and a workshop in which he makes clockwork automatons.
Life is richer than he expected.
When a storm brings them together, each strikes a chord in the other, but they soon must part, each to their own lives.
Until someone steals John’s beloved daughter, and Pansy steps in to steal her back.
(This is a placeholder blurb. I’m about to work on the one I’ll send to Dragonblade.)