Coronets and Steel

Description

Too much imagination was tantamount to lying―that’s what my grandmother taught me. So when I first got the sense that someone was following me, I ignored it. Who’d waste time following me?

Me, being Aurelia Kim Murray, a grad student from California with a passion for ballet and fencing, and a hopelessly romantic vision of the world. I had some to Europe to track down my grandparents’ families, but so far I’d had no luck.

I couldn’t explain the sense of urgency that drove me, even to myself. It has begun that day four months ago when my grandmother lay restlessly in her bed, her eyes glittering with fever as she gripped my hand. “Your mother is too gentle,” she’s whispered in her aristocratic Parisian French. “I cannot send her to steal the breach.”

Breach? What breach? With her family? With my grandfather’s family? Neither Mom nor I knew anything about Grandmother’s family or the handsome man in the silver-framed photo that Gran always kept on her bedside table.

“She wouldn’t talk about her life before California,” my mom has said, as we waited in yet another specialist’s office, hoping to find out why, though Gran had recovered from her fever, she had not spoken since.

Nothing had come of my search in Paris, or Vienna, and no matter how fast I walked along the grand boulevards, I knew I couldn’t outpace my sense of failure.

And that’s when I met my first ghost.

But seeing ghosts wasn’t my biggest problem. I was being followed, and I was about to find out more about my lineage than I had ever imagined possible in my wildest, most fanciful dreams…or nightmares.Praise for the Dobrenica series:

“It’s a delightful romp, with just enough loose ends to leave some hope that the doomed romance might not be so doomed at all.” ―Locus

“Humor and rapier-sharp wit…a lively heroine, mysterious ghosts, and a complex and intricate plot.”  ―Publishers Weekly

“Highly recommended for all fantasy and general-fiction collections, as the potential readership is wide, from urban-fantasy readers looking for something lighter but still complex to young women who grew up reading the Princess Diaries series.” ―Booklist

“Sherwood Smith skillfully builds tension almost imperceptibly, and keeps the reader off balance and guessing until the final page.” ―Fresh Fiction

“From the very first page, I was swept into the story.” —Night Owl Reviews

“Sherwood Smith is a world-building genius…. The detail didn’t just flesh out the world; it also made the characters and their motivations much more comprehensible.” —Fantasy WorksSherwood Smith started making books out of paper towels at age six. In between stories, she studied and traveled in Europe, got a Masters degree in history, and now lives in Southern California with her spouse, two kids, and two dogs. She’s worked in jobs ranging from counter work in a smoky harbor bar to the film industry. Writing books is what she loves best. She’s the author of the high fantasy History of Sartorias-deles series as well as the modern-day fantasy adventures of Kim Murray in Coronets and Steel. Learn more at www.sherwoodsmith.net or on Twitter at twitter.com/sherwood_smith.US

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