City of Mists

Book 2 of The Age of Aether

After years in exile on Earth, Jack Branham finally returned to Mars. Now agents of the Tharsis Company have abandoned him to die in the ruins of the ancient Martian city Odusar, while anarchists have kidnapped the beautiful Charlotte, the woman he loves. Jack must survive duels between mighty airships, attacks by Martian assassins, and the terrible dust storms that sweep across the face of the entire planet to follow their trail into the uncharted wilds of southern Mars. There, hidden inside a ring of lofty mountains, he discovers a lost civilization on the shores of the mysterious Silver Sea. In the magnificent city of Kor Vosheth, he must defeat a cabal of priests and princes to save the throne of the young queen who holds his only hope of resuming his quest—or of dooming it forever.

The Age of Aether takes place in a universe where the social revolutions of the 18th Century never happened. Mighty airships fill the skies while Cavorite-hulled aetherships ply the airless voids between the planets. From the torrid jungles of Venus to the frigid deserts of Mars, the British Empire has truly become "the Empire on which the sun never sets." The crowned heads of Europe share power with the immensely wealthy chartered companies created to exploit the wealth of the Solar System, while anarchist and republican terrorists try to stir up revolution in the colonial territories. Political activists and dissidents are shipped offworld to work alongside criminal transportees in the company towns of Mars and Venus. The Empires of Mexico and Brazil dominate the Americas, while Japan is a rising force in the East, and from the deep fastness of Nix Olympica the Martian High Emperor reigns over the remnants of his slowly dying planet.

But then a Cromanth ship landed on the new planet--and the last remnants of humanity were in jeopardy once more. Could humankind somehow survive this savage new onslaught by the Cromanthian Empire?

The Chronicles of a Gentlewoman series of steampunk thrillers tells the tale of Lady Aldora Fiske. Feeling the weight of society's expectations upon her shoulders, she travels the world seeking adventure, protecting the innocent and punishing the wicked.

Her loveless wedding of convenience approaching, gentlewoman Aldora is among the influential Europeans to accept handsome nobleman Cemal Yavuzade Bey's invitation to show off the Young Turks' Ottoman Empire and its secularist reforms.

After she alone escapes the devious plot to kidnap the foreign guests for leverage against the Great Powers of Europe, she's confronted with an Empire where women are given all the rights and respect of men, and a handsome Turkish nobleman who treats her like an equal. Will Aldora give up her old life and start anew in the Ottoman Empire?

This 16,000 word novella is the third in the Chronicles of a Gentlewoman series of steampunk thrillers.

Excerpt:

Aldora's ruminations were interrupted when strong hands grabbed her from behind, heavy masculine arms wrapping around her torso, a solid forearm across her neck and one across her ribs. She was yanked back, off of her feet, only able to give the tiniest of yelps before the pressure at her throat cut the air from her lungs.

She struck back almost instinctively with her elbow, but her attacker was arched away, maintaining his grip while keeping himself out of range. She stamped back with the heel of her sandalled foot towards where she imagined his instep to be, but only managed to chip the bathhouse tiles.

Her vision began to grey out at the edges and the man pulled back on her neck again, almost bending her over backwards. She used that momentum to kick herself up and out of her sandals, feet scrabbling for purchase on the bathhouse wall, and launching herself into an almost vertical lift above her attacker. The sudden movement unbalanced him and sent him stumbling back into the cool water of the chamber's pool, letting go of the Englishwoman as he hit its surface.

Aldora pushed away from his body and turned to face the man who had grabbed her. He was a Turk; dressed in dark clothing, a curved dagger at his sash, floating motionless in the water. His head lay upon the edge of the pool where he'd fallen, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle where he'd landed on the edge. The assassin -- if assassin he was -- was dead.