The Children of the Mountain King
In 1812, high Society is rocked by the return of the Earl of Sutton, heir to the dying Duke of Winshire. James Winderfield, Earl of Sutton, Winshire’s third and only surviving son, has long been thought dead, but his reappearance is not nearly such a shock as those he brings with him, the children of his deceased Persian-born wife and fierce armed retainers.
The overarching story begins with a prequel novella telling the love story of James senior and Mahzad, then leaps two decades to two series of four novels each as the Winderfield offspring and their cousins search for acceptance and love.
The first series is The Return of the Mountain King and tells the story of how James and his children adapt to Regency Society and they to him, and how two of his children and his English-born nieces find love. The series ends in Paradise at Last, a novella about James senior and the Duchess of Haverford, which is part of a set called Paradise Triptych, which includes Paradise Regained and Paradise Lost (Eleanor Haverford’s memoirs).
The second series, In the Shade of the Mountain King, a further four novels about James’s younger children, is planned for 2024.
Paradise Triptych
Long ago, when they were young, James and Eleanor were deeply in love. But their families tore them apart and they went on to marry other people.
Paradise Regained
James Winderfield yearns to end a long journey in the arms of his loving family. But his father’s agents offer the exiled prodigal forgiveness and a place in Society — if he abandons his foreign-born wife and children to return to England.
With her husband away, Mahzad faces revolt, invasion and betrayal in the mountain kingdom they built together. A queen without her king, she will not allow their dream and their family to be destroyed.
But the greatest threats to their marriage and their lives together is the widening distance between them. To win Paradise, they must face the truths in their hearts.
Paradise Lost
In 1812, the suitor Eleanor’s father rejected in favour of the Duke of Haverford has returned to England. He has been away for thirty-two years, and has returned a widower, and the father of ten children.
As the year passes, various events prompt Eleanor to turn to her box of keepsakes, which recall the momentous events of her life.
Paradise Lost is a series of vignettes grounded in 1812, in which Eleanor relives those memories.
Paradise At Last
Now Haverford is deceased nothing stands between the Duchess of Haverford and the Duke of Winshire. Except that James has not forgiven Eleanor for putting the dynasty of the Haverfords ahead of his niece’s happiness.
Can two star-crossed lovers find their happiness at last? Or will their own pride or the villain who wants to destroy the Haverfords stand in their way?
Paradise Triptych contains two novella and a set of memoirs: Paradise Regained (already published), Paradise Lost (available free to my newsletter subscribers) and Paradise At Last (new for this collection).
To Wed a Proper Lady: The Bluestocking and the Barbarian
Everyone knows James needs a bride with impeccable blood lines. He needs Sophia’s love more.
James must marry to please his grandfather, the Duke of Winshire, and to win social acceptance for himself and his father’s other foreign-born children. But only Lady Sophia Belvoir makes his heart sing, and to win her, he must invite himself to spend Christmas at the home of his father’s greatest enemy: the man who is fighting in Parliament to have his father’s marriage declared invalid and the Winderfield children made bastards.
Sophia keeps secret her tendre for James, Lord Elfingham. After all, the whole of Society knows he is pursuing the younger Belvoir sister, not the older one left on the shelf after two failed betrothals. Even when he asks for her hand in marriage, she still can’t quite believe that he loves her.
(This book was first published as a novella, and has been extensively rewritten to make it a novel. The novella was in the Bluestocking Belles’ collection Holly and Hopeful Hearts.)
To Mend the Broken Hearted: The Healer and the Hermit
Ruth Winderfield is miserable in London’s ballrooms, where the wealth of her family and the question over her birth make her a target for the unscrupulous and a pariah to the high-sticklers. Trained as a healer, she is happiest in a sickroom. When she’s caught up in a smallpox epidemic and finds herself quarantined at the remote manor of a reclusive lord, the last thing she expects is to find her heart’s desire. A pity he does not feel the same.
Valentine, Earl of Ashbury, hasn’t seen his daughter — if she is his daughter — in three years. She and her cousin, his niece, remind him of his faithless wife and treacherous brother, whose death three years ago will never set him free. Val spends his days trying to restore the estate, or at least prevent further crumbling. When an impertinent bossy female turns up with several sick children, including the girls he is responsible for, he reluctantly gives them shelter. Even more reluctantly, he helps with the nursing. The sooner they leave again the better, even if Ruth has wormed her way into his heart.
When Ruth is in danger, Val emerges from seclusion to rid to the rescue.
Melting Matilda
Melting Matilda, first published in Fire & Frost by the Bluestocking Belles, now available as a stand-alone novella.
Fire smoulders under the frost between them
Can the Ice Maiden soften the Granite Earl?
Her scandalous birth prevents Matilda Grenford from being fully acceptable to Society, even though she has been a ward of the Duchess of Haverford since she was a few weeks old. Matilda does not expect to be wooed by a worthy gentleman. The only man who has ever interested her gave her an outrageous kiss a year ago and has avoided her ever since.
Can the Granite Earl melt the Ice Maiden?
Charles, the Earl of Hamner is honour bound to ignore his attraction to Matilda Grenford. She is an innocent and a lady, and in every way worthy of his respect—but she is base-born. His ancestors would rise screaming from their graves if he made her his countess. But he cannot forget the kiss they once shared.
To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
The beauty known as the Winderfield Diamond hides a ruinous secret. Society’s newest viscount holds the key.
Sarah Winderfield has refused every suitor since Nathaniel Beauclair convinced her to run away with him seven years ago, and then disappeared without a word or a trace. But now she needs a husband. She has a child to love and to protect, and the child needs a father.
She does not expect to meet Nate also on the marriage mart. Should she let him explain? Can she believe him?
Dragged back to England to feed his father’s pride in family, Nate refuses to give into the man’s demands that he take a wife. Those who beat and abducted him seven years ago said the only woman he will ever love would be married within the month to a husband chosen by her father.
But when he finds that Sarah is still single, he rushes to London. Surely, they can find again the promise they believed in when they were young?
Through a labyrinth of old rumours and new enemies, two long-lost lovers must decide whether or not to claim one another, and win the bright future they both desire.
To Tame the Wild Rake
Aldridge doesn’t want to yearn for the sister of a friend from his raking days. Especially since she has rejected him in no uncertain terms. Charlotte keeps a secret that bars her from marriage, but even if she found the courage to trust, she would never trust a rake.
The whole world knows Aldridge is a wicked sinner. They used to be right.
The ton has labelled Charlotte a saint for her virtue and good works. They don’t know the ruinous secret she hides.
Then an implacable enemy reveals all. The past that haunts them wounds their nearest relatives and turns any hope of a future to ashes.
Must they choose between family and one another?
(Charlotte and Sarah are the twin daughters of Sutton’s eldest brother.)
And the rest
(Titles and covers might change a little before publication)
I have two blurbs for In the Shade of the Mountain King–the first novel and the last.
To Escape the Fortune Hunter, with Rosemary and Daniel: Rosemary does not expect to marry for love, and is resigned to the reality that most of her suitors are fortune-hunters. An Anglo-Indian friend from her childhood has been told to find a rich wife. Surely this is the perfect match. So why does Rosemary’s eye keep straying to Simon’s equally penurious friend Daniel, who has become engaged to a friend of Rosemary’s. Could love be a possibility after all? Or will the demands of friendship and loyalty prevail?
Barnabas will rescue a girl from slavers while on an expedition to Central Asia to study ancient civilisations. And Thomas is an engineer who finds that one of the apprentice engineers on his railway project is actually a woman. Titles and blurbs to come.
To Save the Desperate Maiden, with Andrew and Anne: Drew is sorry for the girl next door, who is brutally treated by her step-family. His support for Anne has unintended consequences when her step-brother forces a compromising situation. A marriage begun in such unpromising circumstances faces further challenges when a totally unprepared Anne faces the critical eye of the ton.
