The extract from my current Work In Progress, Spirit, provoked such a lot of interest I thought I'd follow it up with a snippet from my most recent ebook, Lady Rascal. This book originally appeared as a hardback and paperback, but it was sold only in the UK. Now it's available worldwide, downloadable from Amazon (Kindle), iTunes, Barnes and Noble (Nook) and loads of other ebook suppliers, too.
Lady Rascal is set in the summer of 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution. As Paris descends into chaos, poverty-stricken Madeleine finds herself in a deserted Parisian dressmaker's shop. She grabs the chance to dress up in the glamorous accessories and impractical shoes she has only been able to dream about until now...
It was a shift of some description, needing only the hem to be finished. But what a shift! Almost transparent, the fine fabric rippled through Madeleine’s gloved fingers like water. It was all she needed to complete her outfit.
In a moment her work dress of coarse brown stuff had been cast aside. It took her a few minutes to work out how to get into the shift, which had no fastenings but pulled on over her head. At last she managed, arranging the folds of fabric about her painfully thin body.
It clung to her like pale mist, flowing with every movement and making graceful her stumbling steps in the borrowed shoes. She was entranced, and so beguiled that the running footsteps outside went unnoticed. Only when a foreign voice called out very close at hand did she jump out of her dream.
Then panic turned her to water. To be found here, dressed like this would be certain death. Like an idiot she had not thought to douse the candles, and now it was too late.
The door flew and a large shadow rippled through the shop towards her.
With a scream Madeleine dropped the candle she held...
Spirit and Lady Rascal are very different in both content and style. If you've read both, I'd love to know what you think of the contrast!
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