Magnificent Devices: Manor House Quartet

This quartet collection features four novellas set in the Magnificent Devices world, an edition of more than 400 pages. Home may be where the heart is, but sometimes it is also where the greatest danger lies …

Married eight months, Lady Claire Trevelyan and Dr. Andrew Malvern are blissfully working together on a new invention, and providing a home for a collection of street sparrows. In Carrick House, they escape an onslaught of unexpected guests and sleep aboard Athena. The last thing they expect is to have their airship hijacked … with Claire’s little brother Nicholas still aboard. In Selwyn Place, Lady Emilie Selwyn invites Andrew and Claire to her very first country house party. There, they meet a guest with violent connections to an old crime in Claire’s past. She will not allow anything to chill dear Emilie’s first foray into society—even if it means that the Lady of Devices must come out of retirement once again. In Holly Cottage, Maggie Polgarth astonishes everyone by buying her own home near Vauxhall Gardens. But the south bank gangs have not forgotten her connection to the Lady. Jake Fletcher McTavish will not allow anyone to harm a hair on Maggie’s head. But how can he show her that his feelings run deeper than those of a brother? Lastly, in Gwynn Place, eight-year-old Nicholas departs for his first year at Eton—and does not arrive. As the danger mounts, can this small member of an ingenious and courageous family tip the balance between power and love, and save more than one life?

If you like old-fashioned adventure, brave women, clever children, and strong-willed chickens, you’ll love this quartet of novellas set in the Magnificent Devices world. Fangs for the Fantasy says Claire is “a wonderful main character (one of my favourites in the genre)” and the series has “a great sense of Victorian style and language that’s both fun and beautiful to read.”