May Announcements (Patreon)

Hey, It's a new month and this new month is bring us some new changes!

Those of you who are in the Discord will already know that we've merged with the Heroines and Villainess server and, as a result, I can no longer offer a special Top Hat role within the Discord server. That's the bad news, the GOOD news is that I have a perk that I think you Top Hats will appreciate far more: extra chapters!

Starting May 1st we are expanding the number of advance chapters from 5 to 10 for the Top Hat subscribers. If all goes well, next month I'll be able to expand that to 15 advance chapters. I'll be keeping the $5 Bowler Hat option available, but you will now have the option to upgrade if you want to.

We're in the home stretch for Book 1. Following the conclusion of Book 1, we'll have an intermission of side stories for Book 1 that will kick off with a four-part novella from Cecily's POV of her first day at Breckenridge Academy. Other stories will be told from Adra and Bertram's perspectives. There's lots to look forward to!

This Month's WIP is called 'The Monstrous Sound of Wings.' This is the story of Chloe Evans, a professional 'chaperone' whose chaperonage is exclusively sought by young ladies who are more in need of private security than they are of supervision. Chloe enjoys her life. She has everything she needs and sometimes she gets paid to break a man's nose. What more could a sensible working woman ask for? Her orderly life is overturned when an unknown relative shows up to drag her off to an interview with a lawyer where she finds out that, not only did her late mother leave her money and property, she also left Chloe the dangerous responsibility of caring for a shrine of small, angry gods. The cousin who was meant to raise her into a good custodian of the shrine dumped her in a orphan girls boarding school and kept her inheritance. He would have gotten away with it, but now the little gods are starving. The lawyer isn't there to represent Chloe or her larcenous cousin. He is there to represent the gods.

An Excerpt:

Chloe had been waiting on the hard bench in the chilly hallway outside the Headmistress’s office for nearly an hour. She had her hands trapped under her thighs to keep her fingers warm, but it wasn’t doing much good. 

The bench didn’t often see visitors who weren’t in some form of trouble with Mrs. Redoubt. In fact, Chloe thought she might be the first –hopefully. She wasn’t one of the schoolgirls anymore. Mrs. Redoubt had not been her guardian for nearly four months, not since Chloe had reached her majority. Of course, there wasn’t much difference between a guardian and an employer at St. Margaret’s except the amount of pocket money she received.

She failed to startle as the door to the headmistress’s office burst open with enough force to rattle the nearby window. Her nerves had never been very tender and after living in the dormitories for so long she was deadened to the sound of raised voices and slamming doors.

The man who had opened the door did not seem impressed with her. He looked her over, taking in the plain cut of her brown wool gown and the prim knot of her hair, which did nothing to flatter her small eyes or blocky features. If they were related, she couldn’t see any evidence of it in his face. His features were more catlike below his slicked back graying hair. Perhaps it was a relationship through marriage. He was somewhat better dressed than she was. His jacket and boots were new and close enough to fashionable, although his pocket watch was old and the chain much in want of a polish. “You are?” He barked at her.

“Miss Clotilde Evans.” Chloe answered in as even a tone as she had to command. There was a slender chance that he might be a potential client and if so she did not care to alienate him at the threshold if she was about to go into his service. Indeed, though, his manner reminded her more of the sort of men she was meant to protect her changes from than the ones she did work for.