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Margerit Sovitre did not expect to inherit Baron Saveze's fortunes--even less his bodyguard, a ruthlessly efficient swordswoman known only as Barbara. Wealth suddenly makes Margerit a highly eligible heiress and buys her the enmity of the new Baron. He had expected to inherit all, and now eyes her fortune with open envy.

Barbara proudly served as the old Baron's duelist but she had expected his death to make her a free woman. Bitterness turns to determination when she finds herself the only force that stands between Margerit and the new Baron's greed.

At first Margerit protests the need for Barbara's services, but soon she cannot imagine sending Barbara away. And Barbara's duty has become something far more hazardous to her heart than the point of a sword. But greater dangers loom than one man's hatred--the Prince of Alpennia is ill. Deadly intrigue surrounds the succession and the rituals of divine power known as The Mysteries of the Saints.

Heather Rose Jones debuts with a sweeping story rich in intrigue and the clash of loyalties and love.

Antuniet Chazillen lost everything the night her brother was executed. In exile, she swore that treason would not be the final chapter of the Chazillen legacy in Alpennia's history. A long- hidden book of alchemical secrets provides the first hope of success, but her return to the capital is haunted by an enemy who wants those secrets for himself.

Jeanne, Vicomtesse de Cherdillac is bored. The Rotenek season is flat, her latest lover has grown tediously jealous and her usual crowd of friends fails to amuse. When Antuniet turns up on her doorstep seeking patronage for her alchemy experiments, what begins as amusement turns to interest, then something deeper. But Antuniet's work draws danger that threatens even the crown of Alpennia.

The alchemy of precious gems throws two women into a crucible of adversity, but it is the alchemy of the human heart that transforms them both in this breathtaking follow-up to the widely acclaimed Daughter of Mystery.

Winner of the Gaylactic Spectrum Best Novel Award

All her life, Serafina Talarico has searched in vain for a place where she and her mystical talents belong. She never found it in Rome--the city of her birth--where her family's Ethiopian origins marked them as immigrants. After traveling halfway across Europe to study with Alpennia's Royal Thaumaturgist, her hopes of finding a home among Margerit Sovitre's circle of scholars are dashed, for Serafina can perceive, but not evoke, the mystical forces of the Mysteries of the Saints and even Margerit can't awaken her talents.

When Serafina takes lodgings with Luzie Valorin, widowed music teacher and aspiring composer, both their lives are changed forever. Luzie's music holds a power to rival the Mysteries, and Serafina alone has the vision to guide her talents. For sorcery threatens the fate of Alpennia--indeed of all of Europe--locking the mountains in a malevolent storm meant to change the course of history. Alpennia's mystic protections are under attack and the key to survival may lie in the unlikeliest of places: Luzie's ambition to write an opera on the life of the medieval philosopher Tanfrit.