Coming March 24, 2025
Book Two of the Damsels of Discovery
A Lady with a past. A man with ambition. A romance far from London society that might bridge their divides.
Lady Phoebe Hunt never anticipated returning from exile. A fatal choice drove her from England, but the death of her father—and the revelation of his debts—has brought her home. Once she settles her father’s estate, she will return to America, where she has reinvented herself. There’s no reason to remain, not even for one gravitationally challenged but deliciously tempting entrepreneur: Sam Fenley.
Samuel Fenley is all ambition. Rising from shop boy to wealthy investor, he’s left knocking on doors that open only for those with a title. Unless he buys the damned door itself—and the estate that goes with it. Sam offers to relieve Phoebe of her burdens, but is her crumbling mansion all Sam wants? Or is it the Lady herself?
When threats from Phoebe’s past spark new dangers, Sam and Phoebe discover that neither is what the other expected. Standing on the edge of disaster, the disgraced Ice Queen will have to decide if she wants to forge through life alone, or let an unlikely hero melt her heart.
** NB – A NOTE FOR READERS**
Dear Reader,
Before you read this story know that there is frank discussion of nonsuicidal self-harm within these pages. Tread slowly and if this is painful, be gentle with yourself.
Phoebe’s experience with nonsuicidal self-harm might be familiar to some who have either experienced it themselves or have watched loved one’s self-harm.
To anyone who believes a young woman in an abusive household who self-harmed in the eighteen hundreds is historically inaccurate because there are no records of such incidences, I ask you to take a moment and consider whether the men with a stranglehold on recording and retelling our history would know or care about a very real, very frightening coping mechanism used overwhelmingly by adolescent women.
They were there, those girls who couldn’t feel until it hurt, who chose to inflict pain on themselves rather than wait for pain to be inflicted by others. They were there and I honor and respect them and do the same for all of you who walk this path.
Be well.
Elizabeth Everett