Uncaged welcomes Alyxandra Harvey
Welcome to Uncaged! The Countess Caper released on October 24 th , (this will publish after the release) and is the second book in a series called The Dainty Devils. Can you tell us more about this book and the series?
Thank you so much! The Dainty Devils is my first historical romance series for Dragonblade’s Flame line, and it’s been such fun! It focuses on women outside of the usual restrictions of Regency Society… and the law. A Lady Smuggler, a Highwaywoman, and an Art Thief break all of the rules for love! (And it can be read out of order)
The Countess Caper focuses on Tessa who has bought a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere and fills it with women who are hiding from Society. Tessa will do anything to keep them safe.
Even steal a carriage from Roarke Noble, the Earl of Dartmoor.
As her first foray into being a highwaywoman, it has mixed results. She gets her cousin to the midwife just in time. But she also gets a marriage proposal.
Because Roarke needs a wife.
And with Tessa he gets more than he bargained for. She won’t tell him why she is fighting off housebreakers and stealing from earls and viscounts. Or why her disaster of a house is rigged with traps to discourage unwanted visitors.
But when those secrets put her life in danger, Roarke discovers he will do anything to save her.
What are you working on now that you can tell us about?
I’m currently working on The Husband Heist which is the third book in the series, about Lady Summer who pops up in the earlier books. She steals back an art collection for a friend…and ends us with secret spy information… and a handsome earl!
Read the rest of the interview in the November/December issue of Uncaged Book Reviews
Alyxandra Harvey is the author of The Cinderella Society, The Dainty Devils, The Drake Chronicles, The Witches of London, Haunting Violet and more!
She likes chai lattes, tattoos, and books. Sometimes fueled by literary rage.
The Countess Caper
Alyxandra Harvey
Historical Regency
Sometimes you have to break the rules to find your happily ever after.
The stern and proper Callum Winter, Duke of Tremaine, must marry. At least according to his mother.
Enter: The Duchess Games where ladies are invited to display their accomplishments in dancing, music and all social graces.
Caitriona Sparrow just wants to steal the duke’s signet ring to get her smuggling operation running and save the village from ruin. Options are scarce for a thirty-one-year-old spinster, her two younger siblings, four dogs, a cranky goat, and a one-eyed fox.
She might not have any pretty accomplishments, but she can sing sea shanties and debone a haddock in minutes. But between pianofortes and watercolors, Caitriona is shocked to discover that Callum remembers her from that passionate summer long ago and she has never forgotten him.
Cat might not be duchess material—but she’s the perfect woman to save Callum…and their happily ever after.
The only problem is that she has to betray him first.
Excerpt from Chapter One
On the last Wednesday of September, Lady Tessa Kilkenny stole a man.
She didn’t mean to.
But she wasn’t giving him back.
At least, not yet. There simply wasn’t time. She needed his carriage, and he happened to be inside of it. That was his own bad luck and nothing to do with her.
Mostly.
Anyway, he would survive. Her cousin Dove might not.
And to think that this time last year she had been sitting down to another interminable tea, her ankles crossed, her gloves pristine, her smile polite and as sweet as the teacakes being served. She had told stories, played the pianoforte when asked, laughed when appropriate, murmured when necessary, her spine straight no matter how tired she was.
She’d survived it with another of those terrible smiles because it was meant to protect her, to make her family love her. She was a lark, always up for a laugh. It was meant to save her cousin Deirdre from ruin, and so much worse.
When it did neither, what, as a woman, was she to do?
Burn it all down.
Metaphorically, of course. She would never damage a three-hundred-year-old house with better bones and a better reputation than anyone in her life. Than herself, come to that. Her reputation had not improved. Not to mention Mayfair, with its cobbled stones and marble pillars, would be a bit of work to burn, to be honest.
Still, The Incident followed her.
A week later, a month later. A year later.
And she wasn’t the least bit sorry for it.
Lord Tewksbury got what he deserved. He deserved far worse, but she had acted on impulse with the tools at hand.
And now here she was.
Ruined. Banned from Society. Disdained.
And stuck in a thunderstorm with her cousin crouched in the mud, shouting obscenities.
As one of Tessa’s first forays into being a highwaywoman, it left something to be desired. But she could hardly be held responsible for Dove’s situation. Or the timing of babies deciding they were ready to fling themselves into the world. If she was, she’d have chosen a much warmer day, and a much closer proximity to a midwife. Any midwife, but preferably Noni from the village, which was an hour’s walk away.
She didn’t know the first thing about childbirth.
Neither did Dove, regrettably. She went by Marigold now, changing her name as they all did when moving to Magpie House. It was safer that way. Only Tessa kept her name because she was not in hiding. And no one was looking for her. Certainly, no one wanted to find her.
Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below
