Debut Showcase – Two Historicals and a Fantasy

I have some historicals and a fantasy for you this week.

Historicals

The Sergeant’s Lady
by Susanna Fraser
Carina Press

ebook

Highborn Anna Arrington has been “following the drum,” obeying the wishes of her cold, controlling cavalry officer husband. When he dies, all she wants is to leave life with Wellington’s army in Spain behind her and go home to her family’s castle in Scotland.

Sergeant Will Atkins ran away from home to join the army in a fit of boyish enthusiasm. He is a natural born soldier, popular with officers and men alike, uncommonly brave and chivalrous, and educated and well-read despite his common birth.

As Anna journeys home with a convoy of wounded soldiers, she forms an unlikely friendship with Will. When the convoy is ambushed and their fellow soldiers captured, they become fugitives—together. The attraction between them is strong—but even if they can escape the threat of death at the hands of the French, is love strong enough to bridge the gap between a viscount’s daughter and an innkeeper’s son?

I read this as part of my current historical fiction kick. Review coming in the next day or so.

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The Wet Nurse’s Tale
by Erica Eisdorfer
Berkley Trade

Trade Paperback

Susan Rose is not your average Victorian heroine. She’s promiscuous, lovable, plump, and scheming. Luckily for Susan, her big heart is covered by an equally big bosom, and her bosom is her fortune—for Susan becomes a professional wet nurse, like her mother before her, and she makes it her business to know all the intrigues and scandals that the upper crust would prefer to keep to themselves.

When her own child is caught up in a family scandal, Susan must use all of her street smarts to rescue her baby from the powerful mistress of the house. The scheme she weaves is bold and daring, and could spell ruin if she fails—but Susan Rose has no intention of failing.

This looked familiar to me and I thought I had already covered it, but I haven’t. The hook had me at “her bosom is her future.” It looks fabulous.

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Fantasy and Science Fiction

The Native Star
by M. K. Hobson
Spectra

MM Paperback

It’s 1876, and business is rotten for Emily Edwards, town witch of the tiny Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine. With everyone buying patent magicks by mail-order, she’s faced with two equally desperate options. Starve—or use a love spell to bewitch the town’s richest lumberman into marrying her.

When the love spell goes terribly wrong, Emily is forced to accept the aid of Dreadnought Stanton—a pompous and scholarly Warlock from New York—to set things right. Together, they travel from the seedy underbelly of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, across the United States by train and biomechanical flying machine, to the highest halls of American magical power, only to find that love spells (and love) are far more complicated and dangerous than either of them could ever have imagined.

The author hyperlinked several elements from her cover copy, which I thought was pretty cool so I left them in place. This novel looks like a lot of fun.

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Any float your boat? Discuss in the comments.