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    Spellswept: A Prequel to the Harwood Spellbook
    Spellswept: A Prequel to the Harwood Spellbook
    Spellswept: A Prequel to the Harwood Spellbook
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    Spellswept: A Prequel to the Harwood Spellbook

    By Stephanie Burgis

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A niftily done short romance in a satisfyingly gender-role-reversed world.
    – K.J. Charles, author of Spectred Isle

    In the world of the Harwood Spellbook, 19th-century Angland is ruled by a powerful group of women known as the Boudiccate - but in order to become a member of that group, a lady must be not only a ruthless politician but also the wife of a gentleman mage.

    Amy Standish is a born politician, and she's spent all her life training for the moment when she will finally step into the political arena with a rising mage as her match...which makes it entirely unfortunate that, just as all of her careful plans are coming together, she is faced with the hopelessly impractical and irresistible prospect of Jonathan Harwood - a man who will never, ever be a mage.

    Now, on the night of the Harwoods' Spring Solstice Ball, in an underwater ballroom full of sparkling fey lights and danger, Amy will have to fight the greatest political battle of her life to win a family and a future that she could never have imagined...and it will take an entirely unexpected kind of magic to keep everything from crashing down around her.

    Spellswept by Stephanie Burgis somehow makes room for EPIC ROMANCE and ADORABLE FAMILY LOVE and MENTORSHIP and POLITICS and MAGIC and CHANGING SOCIETY and I think I actually squeed aloud at several points because it’s JUST. SO. LOVELY.
    – Starship Library

    Stephanie Burgis is a fresh new voice and I can’t wait to see what she does next.
    – Ilona Andrews

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephanie Burgis
    Release dateOct 30, 2018
    ISBN9781999725433
    Spellswept: A Prequel to the Harwood Spellbook
    Author

    Stephanie Burgis

    Stephanie Burgis grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, but now she lives in Wales with her husband (fellow writer and ebook cover designer Patrick Samphire), their two sons, and their very vocal tabby cat, Pebbles (who basically owns Steph's Instagram account). She writes wildly romantic historical fantasy for adults (most recently, Scales and Sensibility, Good Neighbors, and the Harwood Spellbook series) and fun, funny MG fantasy adventures for kids (most recently, The Raven Heir and the Dragon with a Chocolate Heart trilogy).

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    • 5/5
      Good read. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding. The series sounds fascinating.

    Book preview

    Spellswept - Stephanie Burgis

    Spellswept

    SPELLSWEPT

    A Prequel to The Harwood Spellbook

    STEPHANIE BURGIS

    Five Fathoms Press

    CONTENTS

    Spellswept

    Afterword

    Acknowledgments

    The evening of the Spring Equinox was cool and balmy, just as the weather wizards had—for once!—reliably predicted. The glittering guest list for the Harwoods’ annual ball was exactly to Amy Standish’s design.

    As she prepared to descend into the lake that gently rippled, reflecting the full moon and stars, outside the grandeur of Harwood House, Amy knew she had organized the most important night of her life so far to absolute perfection. The only tiny, insignificant task left to do was to propose marriage to the right man by the end of this evening. Then she would finally win everything she had ever dreamed of, and it would be utterly perfect. She knew it.

    There was only one problem with the culmination of all her years of planning...and his name was Jonathan Harwood.

    Everyone knew, of course, that Jonathan Harwood was a problem. That was an open secret in political circles, and a joke in the national papers whenever they most wished to embarrass their political leaders.

    The only son of Miranda Harwood—one of the most respected members of the Boudiccate that ruled all of Angland—had actually refused to study magic?

    His father, like every other gentleman who’d ever married or been born to a powerful Harwood lady throughout history, had been a notable magician until his tragic early death. Jonathan’s own place at the Great Library of Trinivantium had been guaranteed to him from birth...yet he’d refused it at eighteen and remained steadfast ever since, turning his back upon centuries of tradition.

    Without magical training, he would never be able to make a marriage that benefited his family. He would neither wed nor sire any more shining female politicians to continue the great Harwood legacy; he would never himself rise to the top of the magical hierarchy that was the natural and proper pursuit of every well-born gentleman.

    It was inexplicable to the world at large. To the Amy Standish of ten months ago, riding towards Harwood House to take up her appointment as Miranda’s new personal assistant, it had seemed quite simply unforgivable.

    For a man to turn his back upon his own family...!

    At the very thought of it, her whole body had stiffened, her strong, dark brown fingers tightening around the small travelling desk on her lap, where she’d been making notes throughout the journey. It was, of course, a delightful writing desk, made of polished walnut, with leaping horses and owls scrolled in gold along its sides. The various guardians who’d been responsible for her education across the past twenty years had never flinched in passing on the generous allowance that she’d been assigned from her inheritance.

    They’d each delivered it to her with scrupulous fairness, just as they’d delivered Amy herself, every year or two, to the next distant relation with an unfortunate obligation to care for her. Then they’d passed the whole sum on to her, with even less well-disguised relief, the moment that she finally reached the age of maturity and they could dust their hands of all obligations towards her forever.

    Of course, they’d had their own families to look after. One day, though, Amy would finally establish a family of her own, and then she would be fierce in its protection—and unlike some hopelessly over-privileged and thoughtless young men, she would never turn away from them! Even the idea of such a betrayal was—

    A flash of blue water caught her gaze, distracting her from her ire, as the thick woodland cleared ahead. Aha: finally, the famous Aelfen Mere. It was the site of the late Mr. Harwood’s legendary wedding gift to his wife, a spell that had lasted for a mind-boggling three decades by now to create the Boudiccate’s most unique and acclaimed festive meeting place.

    Over the years, Amy had devoured dozens of newspaper reports about the spectacular masked balls, dazzling theatricals, and world-changing international negotiations that regularly took place beneath the seemingly calm waters of that lake. Emissaries from Angland’s allies among the various African nations, the Marathan Empire, and even the widely distrusted new Daniscan Republic had all danced and schemed beneath the blue, along with representatives from the local fairies who shared Angland’s landscape in a state of uneasy détente.

    Soon, if she succeeded in impressing Miranda Harwood, Amy would find her own place in those negotiations. She had been waiting her entire life for the chance—but of course, being Amy, she hadn’t merely waited. She’d spent the last three years making detailed lists of plans for exactly how she would manage it.

    If there was one lesson Amy Standish had learned in twenty years of being unwanted by her guardians, it was that planning and perfection were the only sensible strategies to manage life with her head held high.

    And then she met the Harwood family, and every one of her plans was thrown into turmoil.

    Now Amy hesitated by the lakeshore on the night of the Spring Equinox Ball, ensnared by memories and hopelessly tangled in emotions...until a familiar voice spoke suddenly behind her.

    "There you are. Miranda Harwood’s words broke through Amy’s swirling thoughts. Still worrying over all the tiny details?" Amusement rippled

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