Alpennia

In The Mystic Marriage, Vicomtesse Jeanne de Cherdillac tells another character, ‘I have loved—truly loved—only four women. One of them is dead. One never found the courage to say either yes or no. You were the third.’ When I wrote those words, I knew relatively little about those first two women, but I had the first inkling that Jeanne might have some interesting stories to tell. This is not the story of either that first or second love, but of the time between them when grief and regret had not yet been replaced by archness and a cultivated sophistication. 

(From Daughter of Mystery)

…for a brief time, intrigued and flattered by the interest and starved for the human touch that she was denied in the ordinary way, Barbara had let things go further than had been wise. Her cheeks still burned at remembering that glorious imprudence.

This is the story of that glorious imprudence.

Margerit n'attendait de son parrain, le baron Saveze, qu'un petit héritage, juste de quoi se constituer une dot. Au lieu de cela, le baron lui a laissé la majorité de sa fortune et les services d'une épéiste redoutable, ainsi que la haine de l'homme qui s'attendait à être son héritier. La nouvelle fortune de Margerit lui donne la liberté de réaliser son rêve d'étudier la thaumaturgie dans la ville de Rotenek, pour apprendre les Mystères des Saints. Barbara était fière d'être la duelliste du baron, mais pensait que sa mort la libérerait. Aujourd'hui, son destin est lié à celui de Margerit.

Margerit Sovitre did not expect to inherit Baron Saveze’s fortunes—even less his bodyguard, a ruthlessly efficient swordswoman known only as Barbara. Wealth suddenly makes Margerit a highly eligible heiress and buys her the enmity of the new Baron. He had expected to inherit all, and now eyes her fortune with open envy.

Barbara proudly served as the old Baron’s duelist but she had expected his death to make her a free woman. Bitterness turns to determination when she finds herself the only force that stands between Margerit and the new Baron’s greed.

Antuniet Chazillen lost everything the night her brother was executed. In exile, she swore that treason would not be the final chapter of the Chazillen legacy in Alpennia’s history. A long-hidden book of alchemical secrets provides the first hope of success, but her return to the capital is haunted by an enemy who wants those secrets for himself.

The streets are a perilous place for a young laundry maid dismissed without a character for indecent acts. Roz knew the end of the path for a country girl alone in the city of Rotenek. A desperate escape in the night brings her to the doorstep of Dominique the dressmaker and the hope of a second chance beyond what she could have imagined. Roz’s apprenticeship with the needle, under the patronage of the Royal Thaumaturgist, wasn’t supposed to include learning magic, but Celeste, the dressmaker’s daughter, draws Roz into the mysterious world of the charm-wives.

Alpennia #5 - that's all you need to know for now. Publication date is a place-holder as it hasn't even been written yet.