Description
About the Author
Sarah Hoyt was born in Portugal during the Cuban Missile Crisis. To make life more interesting, she was born severely premature, at the height of winter in an unheated stone house. She survived, and is glad to report that she's still surviving. She now lives in Colorado with one husband, two children and four cats. She likes dogs but can't afford to adopt eight of them.
She writes science fiction and fantasy for a living. She has published books from her Shifter series (Draw One in the Dark), her Musketeers Mysteries series as Sarah D'Almeida (Death of a Musketeer, The Musketeer's Seamstress) and her Shakespearean Fantasy series (Ill Met by Moonlight). She is currently working on her Magical British Empire series, which includes Heart of Light, Soul of Fire and Heart and Soul, to be published by Bantam Spectra.
Product Description
Filled with adventure and danger, intrigue and romance, this thrilling new fantasy from Sarah Hoyt follows the quest for a rare treasure—by a man of rare breed—in a magical Victorian British Empire that never was….
British gentleman and were-dragon Peter Farewell has embarked on a daunting task: to recover the Soul of Fire, a magical ruby said to lie at the heart of British-controlled India. But finding one stone in the heart of a land simmering on the cusp of rebellion, and rife with hostile magics, seems an impossible task—until Peter saves the life of a young virgin fleeing a distasteful arranged marriage. For unknown to Sofie Warington, the flawed gem that is all that is left of her dowry is the very one Peter has been seeking. And if Peter can keep her safe from the sinister factions desperate to gain control of both Sofie and her dowry, he will find more than a jewel; he will find his heart’s destiny.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Maiden in Peril
"Mama, don't make me marry him," Miss Sofie Warington said.
Seventeen years old, clad in a white dressing gown and clutching a blue muslin dress to her ample bosom—with her hair quite untamed and her expression wild—Miss Warington should not have looked ravishing. But the way her dark hair fell in tumultuous waves to the bottom of her spine, the way tears trembled at the end of the long eyelashes surrounding her dark blue eyes, the way her lips opened to let through her impetuous words would have brought strong men to their knees.
They had less effect on her mother, Lavinia Warington. "Don't be foolish, girl," she said, her voice severe. "What are you doing out of your room? And why are you not dressed?" As she spoke, she skillfully shepherded her daughter up the spacious stairs, carpeted in expensive red velvet that showed wear in discolored, threadbare patches.
Sofie resisted, but it was useless. She felt out of step and like a stranger in this house. She'd been born into it seventeen years ago, and she'd spent her first ten years in its vast, resounding, sun-washed rooms, attended by a native ayah and adored and indulged by her parents' various servants. But at ten, she'd been put aboard a carpetship to London, where for seven years she'd been a pupil in Lady Lodkin's Academy for Young Lady Magic Users.
The summons to return home two weeks ago had overjoyed her. London had never felt like home to her. Too dark, too dank, and people were too ready to sneer at her honey-colored skin—the result of one of her ancestresses' being the Indian mistress of an English officer. She'd felt like a wayfarer in London. And yet, now home proved no home at all.
She'd found her mother and father to be far from the mythical, godlike figures who had watched over her childhood with pride and care. Her mother had grown bitter and her father . . . Her father didn't bear thinking about. She knew nothing of magical maladies, but she knew enough to guess when someone had been using dark magic, and using it far too extensively. And she knew it was an illness that could hardly be cured.
And then there was the reason the
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- Used Book in Good Condition