Devices Brightly Shining: A Steampunk Christmas Novella
About this audiobook
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to meDreadful relations, high expectations,And a sudden urge to pull up ropes and flee.
It is the event of the season—on Twelfth Night, the Dunsmuirs have invited the cream of London society to celebrate the marriage of Lady Claire and Andrew Malvern at a reception to which the prince consort himself is expected. Captain Ian Hollys brings his fiancée, Alice Chalmers, to London to attend and to meet his family—people who cannot see past her flight boots to the woman who stands by his side as an equal.
While adjusting to life as a newlywed, seeing to her business affairs, and preparing the Mopsies to return to school in Munich, Lady Claire is settling into her new life with joy. When two young cousins of Gloria Meriwether-Astor arrive in London, the inhabitants of Carrick House are happy to welcome them. Sydney and Hugh Meriwether-Astor are completing a world tour, and the Dunsmuirs’ ball is just the thing to cap it off in splendid fashion. But Maggie learns that Sydney has his own plans for the family business—and they don’t include cutting off the supply of arms to the Royal Kingdom of Spain and the Californias, as Gloria is determined to do.
It’s time for someone with a spine, an airship of her own, and reasons to put fields of air between herself and decisions about her future to pull up ropes and warn Gloria that betrayal is closer than she thinks.
About the author
Shelley Adina holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction and is working on her PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in the UK. She won the 2005 RITA Award for Inspirational Romance and was a Christy Award finalist in 2009. Between books, Adina loves making period costumes and spoiling her flock of rescued chickens.
Fiona Hardingham is a British-born actress, singer, voice-over artist, and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. On stage, she appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in her comedic one-woman show The Dark Show. She has also starred in the dark-comedy short film The Ballerino. She earned a BA honors degree in performing arts from Middlesex University, London, and also studied at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
