Historical Mysteries, Meredith Duran, & More

How to Fake It in Hollywood

A talented Hollywood starlet and a reclusive A-lister enter into a fake relationship . . . and discover that their feelings might be more than a PR stunt in this sexy debut for fans of Beach Read and The Unhoneymooners.

Grey Brooks is on a mission to keep her career afloat now that the end of her long-running teen soap has her (unsuccessfully) pounding the pavement again. With a life-changing role on the line, she’s finally desperate enough to agree to her publicist’s scheme . . . faking a love affair with a disgraced Hollywood heartthrob who needs the publicity, but for very different reasons.

Ethan Atkins just wants to be left alone. Between his high-profile divorce, his struggles with drinking, and his grief over the death of his longtime creative partner and best friend, he’s slowly let himself fade into the background. But if he ever wants to produce the last movie he and his partner wrote together, Ethan needs to clean up his reputation and step back into the spotlight. A gossip-inducing affair with a gorgeous actress might be just the ticket, even if it’s the last thing he wants to do.

Though their juicy public relationship is less than perfect behind the scenes, it doesn’t take long before Grey and Ethan’s sizzling chemistry starts to feel like more than just an act. But after decades in a ruthless industry that requires bulletproof emotional armor to survive, are they too used to faking it to open themselves up to the real thing?

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The Widows of Malabar Hill

1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s first female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The author of the Agatha and Macavity Award-winning Rei Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a captivating heroine.
 
Inspired in part by the woman who made history as India’s first female attorney, The Widows of Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural 1920s Bombay as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth.

Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes women’s legal rights especially important to her.

Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen examines the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on? Perveen is suspicious, especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X—meaning she probably couldn’t even read the document. The Farid widows live in full purdah—in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts were correct when tensions escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are
in further danger.

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At Your Pleasure

BY CANDLELIGHT, SHE LURES HIM . . .

Glittering court socialites and underworld cutpurses alike know that Adrian Ferrers, Earl of Rivenham, is the most dangerous man in London. Rivenham will let nothing—not the deepening shadow of war, nor the growing darkness within him—interfere with his ambition to restore his family to its former glory. But when tasked by the king to uncover a traitor, he discovers instead a conspiracy—and a woman whose courage awakens terrible temptations. To save her is to risk everything. To love her might cost his life.

AT SWORDPOINT SHE DEFIES HIM . . .

Lady Leonora knows that Rivenham is the devil in beautiful disguise—and that the irresistible tension between them is as unpredictable as the dilemma in which Nora finds herself: held hostage on her own estate by Rivenham and the king’s men. But when war breaks out, Nora has no choice but to place her trust in her dearest enemy—and pray that love does not become the weapon that destroys them both. . . .

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A Spark of White Fire

In a universe of Gods and Goddesses, moons that hide ancient beasts, and cities built on the back of spaceships, infant Princess Esmae was cast into deep space, surviving only by the grace of a Goddess.

Raised far away from her birth home of Kali, Esme longs to return to her real family. And when the King of Wychstar issues a challenge, offering to gift his unbeatable, sentient warship, Titania, to a warrior that can win his competition, the way home becomes clear: she’ll help her brother, Prince Alexi, win the ship and consequently, win her place back in the arms of her family.

But when Alexi rejects, she instead enters as the champion of Max, who banished Alexi’s family from their ancestral home, waging a war that pits cousin against cousin.

And she does the unthinkable. She wins.

Now, Esmae finds herself on the wrong side of an inevitable war, with the Goddess-blessed Titania in the hands of her family’s enemies. Will she be able to reunite with her brother and learn why the queen banished her? Or will her family literally destroy itself, with the weapons she gave them?

Drawing on Indian mythology including the Mahabharata, A Spark of White Fire is a sweeping young adult sci-fi/fantasy retelling that stretches across the universe exploring love, friendship, and the complicated ties that bind families together, and rip them apart, in a world where Gods and Goddesses keep an eye on the stars . . . and the people they favor that fight among them.

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