It's Time!
I'm really excited to share that my Steampunk Alice in Wonderland Retelling, Curiouser and Curiouser is now available on Amazon! The book will be a special release price of 99 cents for the next few days, and is free to read in Kindle Unlimited!
Novel Description
To save the Hatter, Alice must bargain with the one man she despises so much that she might still love him.
Alice thought she'd turned over a new leaf. No more working for Jabberwocky. No more making deals with the ruthless Queen of Hearts. No more hanging around The Mushroom with tinkers, tarts, scoundrels, and thieves in London's criminal underbelly. But she'd been bonkers to dream.
Hatter's reckless behavior leads Alice back to the one person she never wanted to see again, Caterpillar. Pulled into Caterpillar's mad schemes, Alice must steal a very big diamond from a very royal lady. The heist is no problem for this Bandersnatch. But protecting her heart from the man she once loved? Impossible.
Sometimes love is mad.
See how New York Times bestselling author Melanie Karsak re-imagines Lewis Carroll's classic fairy tale, Alice in Wonderland, with a steampunk twist! Join us at The Mushroom in gaslamp Victorian London.
Alice thought she'd turned over a new leaf. No more working for Jabberwocky. No more making deals with the ruthless Queen of Hearts. No more hanging around The Mushroom with tinkers, tarts, scoundrels, and thieves in London's criminal underbelly. But she'd been bonkers to dream.
Hatter's reckless behavior leads Alice back to the one person she never wanted to see again, Caterpillar. Pulled into Caterpillar's mad schemes, Alice must steal a very big diamond from a very royal lady. The heist is no problem for this Bandersnatch. But protecting her heart from the man she once loved? Impossible.
Sometimes love is mad.
See how New York Times bestselling author Melanie Karsak re-imagines Lewis Carroll's classic fairy tale, Alice in Wonderland, with a steampunk twist! Join us at The Mushroom in gaslamp Victorian London.
Sneak Peek
Chapter 1: The Pocket Watch
“Curious.” I strained to look out the window of the carriage
at the crowd thronging toward Hyde Park. A man on a Daedalus steam-powered
buggy motored past. The well-dressed ladies in the back seat, their parasols
shading them from the late afternoon sun, laughed wildly as they sped by. “Where
are they all going?”
“The
Crystal Palace,” Lord Dodgson pronounced grandly. “The Great Exhibition opened
this week. I was planning to have a look myself,” he said, snapping the paper
he was trying to read in an effort to straighten it, a motion he’d made ten times
already since we’d left Hungerford Market. It was starting to get on my nerves.
“Her
Majesty already opened the exhibit?” I asked, trying to hide the disappointment
in my voice.
Lord
Dodgson laughed. “Don’t you keep up on the local gossip, Alice? The whole town
is talking about the Crystal Palace’s opening. A
whole building made of glass and filled with mechanical inventions and
wonders from the world afar…what a sight. I heard the opening was grand.
Crowded but grand.”
I
frowned. I’d thought the opening was next week. The park was located close to Lord
Dodgson’s London home. I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of Queen Victoria but had missed my chance once again.
Half
hanging out the carriage window, I strained to get a look at the festivities. The
revelers had cleared a path and stood to watch
as a man led a clockwork horse, its steel and copper body glinting in the
sunlight, into the park. I could just make out tents sitting in Hyde Park’s
green space. “Then I guess that means the airship races have started,” I said.
In fact, the Great Exhibition’s opening had been timed to the British Airship
Qualifying races.
“I
didn’t fancy you a fan of the aether sports,” Lord
Dodgson said.
“I’m
not. But I have a friend who adores them.”
Adores,
of course, was the wrong word. I tried to calm the uneasy feeling that rocked
my stomach. It was Friday. If the races had opened on Monday, then Henry might
already be in trouble. Had I seen him that morning? Had he gone to the shop? I
tried to think back but couldn’t remember. Last race season he’d gambled away everything
he owned down to the clothes on his back. Even his favorite top hat had gone to some bloody airship pirate.
Race season always equaled trouble for my
dear friend who couldn’t help but try to hedge his bets. His reasons for trying
were honorable. His methods, however, were suspect.
“I’m
not for any of that nonsense either,” Lord Dodgson proclaimed. “Racing around
the sky like we were meant to have wings. No, no. My carriage will do just fine.
It gets us where we need to go, doesn’t it, Alice?”
“Yes,
Your Grace.”
Lord
Dodgson laughed. “When you use formal
address, you sound trite.”
I
grinned. “What an odd thing to say. Shouldn’t one try to adopt manners?”
“Perhaps.
But perhaps not when they are completely
contradictory to that person’s general nature.”
“But
aren’t manners completely contradictory
to all of mankind’s nature? If, in essence, we are little more than creatures
who are brutish and sinful, then manners are merely a mask for the base matter
that lives within us all. And if that’s the case, we’d be wise to drop them
entirely, if we wanted to be more honest. Or should we all lie and adopt the best of manners, thus go around being false?
At least we’d all be equally false.”
Lord
Dodgson laughed again then removed his monocle and looked at me. “Alice Lewis,
you might be the brightest girl I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll
take that as a compliment, mister,” I
replied with a wink.
“Now,
there’s the scruffy guttersnipe I hired,” he said then snapped his paper once
more. “Is there another way to take that comment as anything but a compliment?”
“At
least five. Possibly more.”
“Alice,”
he said, shaking his head. He looked back at his reading.
Well,
it was true. Did he mean to imply he’d met only a few women of intelligence, or
that most women were unintelligent, or that he
thought he would meet wittier girls in
the future, or when he said I might be bright did that mean he was uncertain, and how did he define bright anyway? Was he referring to my hair? Or
maybe my eyes? Or did he just mean he
found me intelligent? Thinking about it gave me a headache, and I was already a
mess of nerves worrying that Henry had already gambled away every shilling he
had. Come to think of it, Bess said he hadn’t been by for dinner last night.
The
carriage rolled to a stop outside Lord Dodgson’s home. I smoothed my white
apron and grabbed the packages sitting on the seat beside me.
“Your
Grace,” the footman said, opening the door.
Lord
Dodgson sighed heavily, folded his paper
under his arm, and grabbed his cane. His bad knee would be aching after his
walk through the market, but I guessed he wouldn’t complain. He’d had too much
fun shopping for his niece’s birthday. The parcels I juggled were proof of
that. I don’t think there was an item left at
the market suitable for a girl around the age of six. What would other six-year-old girls receive for
their birthday now that His Grace had
purchased the lot? Of course, when I was six, I’d been at the workhouse
laboring on a machine until I’d found different employment in the city. It’s amazing how quickly little fingers can
learn to do very evil deeds. But young Charlotte Dodgson, the lord’s niece, would
never have to worry about learning how to pick a pocket. A better life was
reserved for her, and I didn’t begrudge her for
it.
“Your
Grace,” the footman called, his voice full of alarm.
A
moment later, Lord Dodgson cried out in pain.
I
emerged from the carriage to see that he’d slipped on the cobblestone, landing
on his bad knee.
I
dropped the packages, cringing when I heard the telltale clatter of broken
glass, then rushed to help him up.
“Steady
him,” I told the footman. “Easy, Your Grace. We’ve got you.”
“Son
of a bitch,” Lord Dodgson muttered.
“Manners,
Your Grace,” I said as I gently lifted him.
Despite
himself, Lord Dodgson laughed. “Ow,” he said, then laughed again. “Ow…oh,
Alice.”
Steadying
him, the footman and I helped our master stand up.
A
moment later, I heard feet rushing quickly down the cobblestone toward us. The
sound of it set my nerves on edge, and my old instincts kicked in. The runner
didn’t slow as the footsteps approached. I moved to grab the knife hidden out
of sight under my apron, but my hands were all tied up with Lord Dodgson. If I
let go, he would fall.
“Watch
yourself, boy. What? Hey,” the footman called.
A
boy with a mop of striking white hair,
wearing an expensive but oversized waistcoat, slipped between us and was gone
again in a flash.
“My
pocket watch! My grandfather’s pocket watch,” Lord Dodgson cried, clutching his
vest where he always kept his pocket watch.
“Stop that boy. He stole my pocket watch. Alice!”
I
glanced up the street to see the boy dangle the pocket watch teasingly before
us.
“Rabbit,”
I hissed.
“Your
Grace…I need to—”
“Go,
Alice. Go.”
The
footman held tightly onto Lord Dodgson so
I could let go. I turned and faced the boy. Rabbit, the little albino street
rat, was grinning at me. Sneaky little pickpocket. What was he doing in my part
of town? He’d grabbed the watch so deftly. Not bad. Some people said he was
almost as good as I used to be.
Almost.
I came across your giveaway through Silver Dagger Book Tours and had to ask what program you used for the cover art. I am working on my own Alice in Wonderland book and it is a sci-fi rendition. Thanks 4 hosting.
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