Jeanne, Vicomtesse de Cherdillac is bored. The Rotenek season is flat, her latest lover has grown tediously jealous and her usual crowd of friends fails to amuse. When Antuniet turns up on her doorstep seeking patronage for her alchemy experiments, what begins as amusement turns to interest, then something deeper. But Antuniet’s work draws danger that threatens even the crown of Alpennia.
The alchemy of precious gems throws two women into a crucible of adversity, but it is the alchemy of the human heart that transforms them both in this breathtaking follow-up to the widely acclaimed Daughter of Mystery.
Other books by Heather Rose Jones
Heather Rose Jones is the author of the Alpennia historic fantasy series (from Bella Books) and the fairy-tale novella The Language of Roses (from Queen of Swords Press). She has sold short fiction to Sword and Sorceress, Lace and Blade, and Podcastle, among others. She has non-fiction publications on topics ranging from biotech to historic costume to naming practices. Mother of Souls, one of the Alpennia novels, was awarded the Gaylactic Spectrum Best Novel for 2016.
Heather creates the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog and its associated podcast, presenting research on gender and sexuality in history as a resource for authors writing historic-based fiction, as well as promoting lesbian historical fiction in general.
Heather has a PhD from U.C. Berkeley in Linguistics, specializing in the semantics of Medieval Welsh prepositions. She has retired from being a discrepancy investigator in biotech pharmaceuticals.
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