Browsing Tag

gaslight chronicles

Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Ether & Elephants, by Cindy Spencer Pape

I’ve featured fellow Carina author Cindy Spencer Pape on Boosting the Signal before, with her book Dragons & Dirigibles. I’m thrilled to feature her again today, with the latest installment of the Gaslight Chronicles, Ether & Elephants! And don’t forget–if you like the sound of this book, Carina has a 40% off site-wide sale going on till Monday, so you can get this book as part of that sale! Her character for this piece is Thomas Devere, and his goal is simple: win back the love he’s lost, and become a proper father for the child who’s most likely his son. Take it away, Cindy!

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Ether and Elephants

Ether and Elephants

My life was simple when I was a kid. Pick a few pockets, dodge a few coppers, maybe cheat the occasional sailor in a game of cards. Whatever it took to find a little food and a place to get off the streets at night, since the slums of London were rife with vampyres in those days. I teamed up with some other street rats, we learned to kill the vampyres, we got a permanent room over a tea shop, and life was pretty good. Then when I was fifteen, it all went crazy. We got ourselves adopted by one of the best monster-hunters in England. I found out I wasn’t a bastard at all, but the legitimate heir of a bloody baronet! In just one day we were off the streets of Wapping and into a St. James mansion. Even then, I knew, and my new mum knew, that I was in love with Nell, the younger girl in our crew. So they didn’t legally adopt me. Someday, Nell and I would be married.

That was before I did something so devastatingly stupid that it destroyed everything. In university, for a while, I let my little head do the thinking, and wound up married to a barmaid who claimed I’d gotten her pregnant. Day after the wedding she disappeared, and I never heard from her or the child again. It didn’t matter though. I was married, so Nell and I were doomed. She took a job teaching music to blind children, and I did my best to avoid her as much as possible.

Then, Fate intervened. One of Nell’s students went missing—a boy with supernatural gifts, not unlike my own. As soon as I began to investigate, I knew there was a good chance that young Charlie was my missing son. Finding him and his mother became the sole focus of my life.

Now, we’ve discovered hints that I might not be legally married after all. That Charlie, who may or may not be my son, might be better off if I did have the marriage ruled invalid and simply claimed him as my son, despite the stigma of illegitimacy. His mother appears to be involved with an old enemy of ours—an Alchemist who uses children to test his chemical and magical potions.

So I might be free to marry Nell, but now she wants nothing to do with me. And it looks like we’re heading to India. It’s a three-day airship ride. Her natural father might be waiting on the other end, as we hunt a criminal and a little boy through a foreign land. Anything could happen. Anything at all.

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Boosting the Signal

Boosting the Signal: Dragons & Dirigibles, by Cindy Spencer Pape

This is a fun one, folks, because today’s Boosting the Signal guest is none other than Carina’s powerhouse mistress of steampunk romance, Cindy Spencer Pape! She’s got a brand new book in her ongoing series, the Gaslight Chronicles! And the goal of her heroine Melody McKay? Get back into the sky. No matter what irritating earls may be in her way.

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Dragons & Dirigibles

Dragons & Dirigibles

Airships are my life. Designing, building and then flying a machine that soars above the clouds is about the most exciting, exhilarating career I can imagine.

And that explains why I’m still a spinster. In Queen Victoria’s England, what man is going to accept an airship engineer and pilot as a wife? As far as I can tell, exactly none, since I have no intentions of giving up flight if I ever do settle down. Still, sometimes it does feel like life is passing me by. My brother and sister are both married now, along with my best friend, Wink. I have a gorgeous nephew and my sister-in-law is expecting twins any day. I suppose my role in life is to be the crazy auntie who takes the kiddies on dirigible rides.

At least that was my plan until my perfect, crash-free record was broken when someone shot—that’s right, shot—my prototype silent-flight airship out of the sky. And wouldn’t you know it, I ended up on the lawn of an earl who thinks women ought to be wrapped in cotton wool and trotted out for teatime. He’s stifling his poor niece, who’s a fun little imp. I wonder what it would take to get the stick out of his arse? Or maybe it’s a mast, since he used to be a Navy man. He might almost be handsome if he’d actually smile for a change.

Thanks to a sprained ankle, I’m stuck here in Devon at his gloomy old manor house, while he’s trying to investigate a smuggling ring. Since I think it was the smugglers who shot me down, I’m inclined to help. Even if he doesn’t want me to. Maybe in the process, I can get it through his thick head that females are more than just brainless baubles.

As soon as that’s done, I am soooo out of here and heading back to London, where I belong.

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