An actress in her time plays many parts.
This may be Delia’s last.
New York, 1890. Is no one what they seem?
Delia Ross has freed herself from society’s expectations.
Luke Kelly has not.
The emancipated actress and the disapproving police detective set out for Saratoga in pursuit of a fugitive jewel thief. Along the way they will encounter collusions and contrivances, diabolical double-dealings, a talented table-turner and a murderer and, maybe, a very irritated ghost.
EXCERPT:
From an inner office came a low hum of conversation. The door was ajar. Through it Delia saw, seated at a long scarred walnut table, a wiry clean-shaven man with unruly auburn hair. On the far side of the table, in front of the window, stood an imposing barrel-chested figure with heavy jowls and bushy brows and a receding hairline. “Tell me I didn’t hear you say you mean to employ a female,” protested an unfamiliar voice.
“A person might think you don’t like females, Kelly,” the auburn-haired man observed.
“I don’t like this new breed of mushy-headed suffragists who think they should leave off their corsets and work side by side with men,” the unseen speaker growled.
If ever she had heard an entrance cue–
Delia walked into the room.
Summer, 1814. Napoleon is safely tucked away on Elba. The Allied Sovereigns have invaded London to sightsee and bask in public admiration and, almost incidentally, work out the details of the Peace. All London has caught a celebratory fever, from fashionable Mayfair to the rookeries of the East End.
And as these exciting events are taking place…Julie expects she will end up dangling on the gallows at Newgate, hanged as a thief.
Ned expects he will die on the battlefields of the Peninsula, hanged as a spy.
But then Julie takes on the trappings of a lady, and Ned unexpectedly becomes an earl, both players in a deadly game that will take them from the heights of London society to the depths of the Regency underworld — a game in which not only necks are risked, but hearts as well.
“MacKeever expertly combines romance, humor, passion and mystery to create a gripping and entertaining novel. The primary and secondary characters are well developed and will elicit multiple emotional responses from readers throughout the novel. THE TYBURN WALTZ is a keeper you’ll want to re-read often.” — 4 1/2 stars, Romantic Times
“I haven’t laughed this much while reading in a while! Don’t miss this witty, well-written book.”–Romance Reviews Today
Poor Maddie Tate. Widowed with two children. An ordinary sort of female, no more memorable than a potted palm. Seven and twenty years of age.
Lucky Angel Jarrow. Temptation incarnate, lazy and spoiled – and why should he not be, when the whole world adores him, save for the notable exception of his wife?
Maddie Tate and Angel Jarrow. In the ordinary course of events, their paths might never cross. But then comes the Burlington House bal masque, when Maddie witnesses something she should not, and flees straight into Angel’s arms.
And he discovers that he does not want to let her go.
Mysterious masqueraders. Misbehaving monarchs.
Political perfidy.
While in the background the ton twitters, and a fascinated London follows the Regent’s preparations for his Grand Jubilee.
England, 1820. The trial of Queen Caroline is underway. Prinny, George IV now, is determined to divorce his detested wife.
The Whigs hope that the Queen will win her case. The Tories pray that she will not. More than a few Londoners wish that the politicians, taking their monarch with them, would jump off the nearest pier.
London is about to become even more exciting. In the midst of all this uproar, Clea Fairchild returns home.At fifteen, Clea had been reading Ovid’s ART OF LOVE. And scheming how to, once she acquired bosoms, introduce herself into rakehelly Baron Saxe’s bed.
Clea is one-and-twenty now, a widow whose husband died under mysterious circumstances she is determined to resolve.
Kane is almost twice that age.
Reprobate though he may be, Lord Saxe is not sufficiently depraved to act on the unseemly attraction he feels for his friend Ned’s little sister, whom he is convinced means to drive him mad.
Clea wonders, is Kane trying to drive her mad? In the years since they last met, he has grown more dissolute, more jaded, and even more damnably attractive.
He has also grown skittish, and is avoiding her as if she carries plague.
Clea isn’t one to sit quietly in a corner. She has a mystery to solve. Villains to elude. Schoolgirl fantasies to explore.
Providing her husband’s murderer doesn’t dispose of her first.
“Maggie MacKeever is a genius with this type of offbeat tale, filled with a multitude of lovable, zany characters guaranteed to meddle outrageously on love’s behalf.”–Romantic Times
“Maggie MacKeever takes readers on a fun-filled ride.”—The Romance Readers Connection
“If you don’t like your Regencies funny, don’t read Maggie MacKeever. However, if you like to laugh out loud, she’s the writer for you.” —Classic tv hits.com
“Fans and new readers will be thrilled with this delightfully zany tale from longtime Regency favorite Maggie MacKeever. It’s laugh-out-loud good.”–Romantic Times
At seventeen, Zoe Loversall was the toast of London, with so many admirers that they were known as ‘Zoe’s Zoo’. At seven-and-twenty, she is a runaway Contessa, determined to experience everything life has thus far withheld.
Zoe returns to London, determined to seek her ruin and her revenge. There she sets her sights on Lord Quinton, a man notorious for the women he has bedded, the men he has killed in duels, the amount of liquor he consumes, the fortune he is doing his best to gamble away.,
Lord Quinton is bored beyond bearing by females wishful to be rid of their virtue, and so he informs Zoe.
Zoe, however, is not so easily convinced.
The legendarily libidinous Loversalls are notorious for their amorous adventures, their erotic escapades. Alas, Beau Loversall has lost his enthusiasm for such pursuits. It is, he fears, a result of advancing age. But then he reluctantly rescues an innocent, and must provide her a proper duenna –
A comedy of manners, Regency style.
Lord Quinton, the Black Baron. The most wicked rakeshame in all London. The most jaded. The most bored.
He cannot count all the females he has debauched. The duels he has fought. The games of chance he lost, and won.
And still he sometimes wonders if a man might expire of ennui.
But then, one day, his past strolls up to his front door and slaps his jaded face.
And Quin discovers that his passions can still be inflamed.
EMILY DINWIDDIE, current overseer of the Dinwiddie Society for the Exploration of Matters Abstruse and Supersensible, knows full well that fantastical beings exist. Werewolves. Shapeshifters. Vampires. To her regret, she has not yet been privileged to meet one of these creatures in, as it were, the flesh. However, that is about to change. Will Count Revay-Czobar be a blood-sucking fiend so foul she cannot bear to look at him, let alone ask his help? Will he see her as a tasty tidbit, and force her to defend herself?
VALENTIN LUPESCU, COUNT REVAY-CZOBAR, is not the sort of supersensible being read about in books. No vampir melancholia for Ravensclaw. No regret for past lives, lost loves. His situation suits him well enough, save for his tendency to get bored. When Emily arrives on his doorstep, draped about with every vampire-repelling charm devised by mortal man, he sees in this freckled, bespectacled spinster the source of more potential amusement than he’s enjoyed in a score of decades.
She wants him, of course. It is the nature of his kind.
He wants her also. Which is not at all the way these matters generally play out.
A quest. A curse. Passion and perplexities. Mystery, mayhem and madness in the dark streets of Regency Edinburgh’s Old Town.
The Edinburgh Vampires, Book I. Originally published as WALTZ WITH A VAMPIRE.
SARAH KINCAID is a widow with a knack for charms and herbs. Her marriage left her disillusioned. The last thing she needs is for an annoying green-eyed man to interfere with her peace of mind.
ANDREI TOROK is a warrior with a demon mistress and an unrelenting headache. He is weary of his existence. The last thing he needs is to have long-buried emotions stirred by a quick-tempered, sharp-tongued lass.
Moreover, Andrei is vampir.
And Sarah is not.
Sarah believes in vampires no more than she believes in the lasting nature of sentimental attachments formed by the perfidious opposite sex.
Andrei is smitten with her, nonetheless.
Add mysterious artifacts and inconvenient corpses. Curses and spells. Vengeful preternatural beings, a deadly vendetta, and a pesky ghost . . .
A romantic misadventure in Regency Edinburgh.
Priest. Destroyer. Healer. Cezar Korzha ha been wandering this earth for a very long time, fighting his way through Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, before coming to rest at last in Scotland. He has survived assassiation, crucifixion, being buried twice. Has known more than a few monsters and a demon or two.
He has also survived, thus far, his succession to the postion of Master of Edinburgh.
Cezar sometimes wishes he could be merely human. He might as well wish for the moon.
And now–
Inconvenient corpses are popping up in public places. His creator is trying to destroy him. His allies are falling victim to Cupid’s dart. He has an otherworldly being in his drawing room and a judicator on his doorstep.
What’s a vampire to do?
“What’s a girl to do when she finds herself falling for the undead except WALTZ WITH A VAMPIRE and try to steal his immortal heart? A thoroughly enjoyable historical!”–Romance Junkies
“. . . a tale that will delight both Regency and vampire lovers alike.”–Romantic Times
“MacKeever has written a light hearted yet darkly dangerous novel that Vampire and Regency fans alike won’t be able to resist.”–Rakehell
vintage ink press 