Serial · ongoing
The Proxy Bride
On the night before the wedding that was meant to end a blood feud, Ada Vale runs away. Her younger sister, Mira, takes her place. The marriage is a treaty: a Vale bride for the Voss fords, peace on the Sarrow bought with a woman's name. But Mira arrives at Vauntholm as a proxy bride in a hostile hall, wed to Aldric Voss — a young margrave with a cold manner, a family full of secrets, and no reason to trust the sister of the woman he was promised. What follows is a slow, careful book about power in small rooms: the keys of a household, a locked casket, a dowager's questions, a cup that should not have been poured. Mira is not a warrior or a chosen one. She is a woman learning how far her sister's name will carry her, and what it costs to use it. The Proxy Bride is a political fantasy for readers who like their romance earned, their mysteries close to the hearth, and their heroines awake to the danger of being underestimated. Heads-up: poison, political violence, and a marriage under duress.
Chapter 1: First Frost
The shutter had torn loose in the wind and was beating the wall, and every time it struck, the flame in the lamp jumped. Rain had come in so…
Chapter 2: The Stable Boy in the Garden
Mira heard her brother before she saw the room. He had a way of talking with his boots. He had come in off the Alderford road at dusk, two m…
Chapter 3: Two Notes, Going Up
The bed was narrow, and Ada's back was a warm wall in it. Mira put her arm around her sister's waist and pulled herself in until her chin wa…
Chapter 4: Two Kinds of Marriage
"You have to run," Mira said, her mouth almost against her sister's ear. "The Vosses will take the match. They want the crossings, and they'…
Chapter 5: The Path Behind the Abbey
Five days after the first frost her aunt took them both out to the abbey. They went with two carts and eight servants and the usual load — h…
Chapter 6: The Duke on His Knees
The rider had been let in through the small gate before it was light and had stood in the passage a long while before anyone would agree to…
Chapter 7: A Convenient Fever
# A Convenient Fever Her father's boots had left wet prints all the way up the stair. Mira was standing at the top of it with a candle, beca…
Chapter 8: An Apple in Her Lap
The water came up in cans, two women to a can, and by the last can it was barely warm. Mira stood in the tub with her hair pinned off her ne…
Chapter 9: What the Brothers Did Not Say
The men had the trestles out and were stacking them on their sides under the gallery, and there was a place just inside the door where the f…