The Dangers to Hearts

Do broken hearts destroy all 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 (from A Game of Secrets) 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   His cousin Agatha Helmes, he says, will hire anyone he sends to her.

Helmes Farm to assist the current steward.

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  romantic suspense.  While the novel is the sixth in the Hazards to Hearts series, it is complete and contains no cliffhangers.  While 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 is not necessary.

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The Dangers for Spies

Past actions cause present dangers.

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.  When a French agent discovered her double game, she barely escaped with her life.

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.

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.

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?

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 must be shed before the past is purged.  Whose blood?

The Dangers for Spies is a romantic 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.

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The Dangers of Secrets

Secrets of family.  Secrets of hearts.  Secrets of blood and pain.

Secrets can kill.

Maddy Whittaker, on the shelf for years, never expects the man of her dreams will be the one she once called a stick in the mud.

Banished from a country party so she won’t ruin her sisters’ chances in snaring husbands, Maddy is sent to visit a cousin named Simon Jespers, who is hosting his own Valentine’s party.  She expects three weeks of boredom.

Gordon, Lord Musgrove, expects he will propose to a biddable lady and live unhappily ever after.

He escapes his mother’s country party (where the dowager Musgrove expects her only son to snare a wife) for one last bid at freedom.  He decides to retreat to his friend Simon Jespers.  Gordon never expects that his friend will be hosting a Valentine’s party.  He does expect days and days of boredom.

On arrival at Jespers’ country manor, Maddy and Gordon meet for the first time.  A quick flirtation finds them well matched in mind and soul, and the flirtation changes into romance.

Yet a secret from Maddy’s past threatens their future.

And a serial murderer threatens Maddy’s life.

Can Gordon overcome past secrets and present dangers to marry his perfect match?

The Dangers of Secrets is a romantic Regency murder mystery of approximately 56,000 words.  

The character of Gordon, Lord Musgrove, was first introduced in A Game of Spies, published in the fall of 2015.

Warning: While the romance is sweet, the murders have been described as sordid.  Unwanted memories of abuse may be triggered.  Please be cautious.

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A Game of Hearts

A Game of Hearts

In Regency England, red-blooded commoners have difficulty opening the doors of the blue-blooded . 

haut ton

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Self-made man Rafe Lockhart needs a titled wife to give his daughter Connie the society debut she has dreamed of. A quick marriage to Lady Margaret Symonds, widow of an earl, is the answer to his problem.  Her beauty and wit sweeten his plan.

Maggie Symonds suffered through twelve years of an emotionally abusive marriage after a rake ruined her during her debut.  She hesitates to enter another marriage, especially to   Yet financial difficulties and her own budding attraction to Rafe drive her to accept his proposal.

a man whose wealth is the sole reason that society accepts him.

Neither expects passion to fire up their marriage.  Neither expects that surprising passion to last.  Maggie’s confrontation with Rafe’s mistress is the first blow.  The second comes with Rafe’s suspicions that the rake has lured Maggie back into his bed with protestations of a resumed love.

Falling in love with his employer’s daughter Connie was not Roger Denby’s biggest mistake.  No, that mistake was giving her a taste of passion.  When he rejected Connie, he then had to watch her pursue a gentleman who might be charming her into a snare.  Did Roger drive her into that relationship by awakening her desires?  All he knows is that he still yearns for Connie.  How can he prevent her from ruining herself?

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Connie Lockhart knew the walls between her and Roger Denby:  She was not yet eighteen.  She was the boss’s daughter.  She was as far out of his reach as marriage into nobility was out of hers.  She thought those walls had tumbled down when he kissed her.  Yet he rebuilt them even higher than before and returned to being only her watchdog.

Believing their relationship hopeless, Connie pursues a titled gentleman who is no longer out of her reach since her father’s marriage to an earl’s widow.  And revenge on the snobbish society darlings seems especially sweet.

Richard Malbury (from A Game of Spies) flatters Connie.  He seems charmed by her.  Marriage to him is preferable to a fruitless love of Roger.

And then Rafe is suspected of murdering a valuable employee, and this Game of Hearts turns more dangerous than Rafe & Maggie and Roger & Connie could have anticipated.

A  Regency murder mystery.  Readers may also enjoy A Game of Secrets and A Game of Hearts.

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A Game of Spies

Salons and Soirees.  Flirtations and Dancing.  Gambling and Spies.

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When Josette Sourantine visits her widowed sister-in-law in London, she finds Celeste hosting twice-weekly salons for dancing, flirtations, and gambling on cards.

With a talent for whist, she is commanded by Celeste to have charge of the card room.  Very quickly she attracts attention from the cynical rake Tobias Kennit as well as the handsome society prize Lord Gordon Musgrove.  Yet it is the mysterious Giles Hargreaves who intrigues her.

Col. Giles Hargreaves, son of the Marquess of Grasmere (introduced in A Game of Secrets), has found the émigré spying for Napoleon, but he cannot arrest her until he locates the source feeding her vital government secrets.

He attends the Sourantine salons hoping to locate the man stealing the information for Celeste which she then smuggles to France.  He decides to dally with Celeste only to be distracted by the lovely Josette.

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As their mutual attraction turns into flirtation then deepens into something neither wants to name,   Josette is the spy’s sister;  how could she not be embroiled in the betrayal of England?

Giles worries he is blinding himself.

Josette fears she is giving her heart to a man who is more of a rake than Tobias Kennit.  How can he love her when they have known each other so briefly?

When the net begins to close around the spy and her compatriots, Josette is caught up as well.  Will Giles lose her just when he’s given is heart to her?

A Regency suspense with a dash of romance, A Game of Spies follows A Game of Secrets, which is a complete novel with no cliff-hangers.  While readers may find that reading the first novel creates a fuller experience, it is not necessary to read it in order to enjoy this book.  And while the trilogy concludes with A Game of Hearts, another novel that stands on its own, A Game of Spies does not end with a cliff-hanger.

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A Game of Secrets

 A Game of Secrets

New Cover

Kate Charteris never expected to become a damsel in distress, yet she becomes just that when she must flee her cousin’s unwanted attentions.

While she might be alone in Regency England, her parents deceased and family friends still with Wellington’s army in Portugal and Spain, she is no damsel who faints at the first sight of a dragon-like trouble.

On the hunt for the lair of smugglers and spies for Napoleon, Tony Farraday never expected to fall hard for a damsel not quite in distress.  He collides with Kate on a city street and feels instant attraction.  Yet Kate must catch the mail coach before it leaves, and Tony still needs orders from the spycatcher Giles Hargreaves.

Neither expects to meet again at a run-down inn on the English coast.  On a crumbling cliffside, they vow to keep each other’s secrets and pretend to be strangers.  

Yet that initial spark of attraction catches flame strongly and obviously, jeopardizing their pretense.

When they realize they are in the smugglers’ very lair, Tony must warn his friend Hargreaves.

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The French spy arrives, demanding immediate passage across the Channel to take vital information to Napoleon.  Kate befriends the spy, but she is playing a dangerous game.

Tony hopes to delay the spy long enough for Hargreaves to arrest her and the smugglers—only to be caught in a trap.

When Kate’s cousin arrives, can she evade him long enough to help Tony escape?  Or have they both lost this Game of Secrets?

A sweet Regency historical romance.  A Game of Secrets is a complete novel without a cliff-hanger, but the danger continues in A Game of Spies.

First book in the Hearts in Hazard series.

Tony's friend Giles Hargreaves recurs in the second book of the series, A Game of Spies.

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