Jun 24, 20214 min read

Blog Tour with "The Steel Rose" by Nancy Northcott

The Historical Fiction Press & The Hist Fic Chickie is happy to host today's CPBC blog tour stop for Nancy Northcott's novel, The Steel Rose.

Nancy Northcott’s childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction, fantasy, history, and romance. She combines the emotion and high stakes, and sometimes the magic, she loves in the books she writes.

She has written freelance articles and taught at the college level. Her most popular course was on science fiction, fantasy, and society. She has also given presentations on the Wars of the Roses and Richard III to university classes studying Shakespeare’s play about Richard III. Reviewers have described her books as melding fantasy, romance, and suspense. Library Journal gave her debut novel, Renegade, a starred review, calling it “genre fiction at its best.”

In addition to the historical fantasy Boar King’s Honor trilogy, Nancy writes the Light Mage Wars paranormal romances, the Arachnid Files romantic suspense novellas, and the Lethal Webs romantic spy adventures. With Jeanne Adams, she cowrites the Outcast Station science fiction mysteries.

Married since 1987, Nancy and her husband have one son, a bossy dog, and a house full of books.

Book Title: The Steel Rose

Series: The Boar King’s Honor Trilogy (Book 2)

Author: Nancy Northcott

Publication Date: April 29, 2021

Publisher: Falstaff Books

Page Length: 370 Pages

Genre: Historical Fantasy/Romantic Fantasy

The Boar King’s Honor Trilogy

A wizard’s misplaced trust

A king wrongly blamed for murder

A bloodline cursed until they clear the king’s name

Book 2: The Steel Rose

Amelia Mainwaring, a magically Gifted seer, is desperate to rescue the souls of her dead father and brother, who are trapped in a shadowy, wraith-filled land between life and death as the latest victims of their family curse. Lifting the curse requires clearing the name of King Richard III, who was wrongly accused of his nephews’ murder because of a mistake made by Amelia’s ancestor.

In London to seek help from a wizard scholar, Julian Winfield, Amelia has disturbing visions that warn of Napoleon Bonaparte’s escape from Elba and renewed war in Europe. A magical artifact fuels growing French support for Bonaparte. Can Amelia and Julian recover the artifact and deprive him of its power in time to avert the coming battles?

Their quest takes them from the crowded ballrooms of the London Season to the bloody field of Waterloo, demanding all of their courage, guile, and magical skill. Can they recover the artifact and stop Bonaparte? Or will all their hopes, along with Amanda’s father and brother, be doomed as a battle-weary Europe is once again engulfed in the flames of war?

The Steel Rose is the second book in the time-traveling, history-spanning fantasy series The Boar King’s Honor, from Nancy Northcott (Outcast Station, The Herald of Day).

BOOK EXCERPT

This is from Chapter 1, which is set at a ball in London on February 26, 1815. Stymied in her quest for information that will help lift the family curse, the heroine, Amelia Mainwaring, resolves to enjoy the rest of the evening. But a seer never knows when her Gift will change her plans.

***

Amelia sighed. She had done what she could this evening. She should put her disappointment aside for now and enjoy herself. Sophie and her family were always good company, and Amelia could begin a new round of inquiries tomorrow. One never knew who might have a clue to the truth or information about other ways to lift family curses.

“Let’s walk again,” Sophie said.

The two women moved along. Amelia watched the dancing, smiling couples. They seemed to enjoy themselves, and why not? She and Crispin, her tall, dark-haired husband, had enjoyed flirting with each other from the moment they met until a few days before his death.

They’d shared everything about themselves, including her closeness to the family ghosts. She would’ve bet her pin money few of the dancers, if any, believed in ghosts.

Yet ghosts had been Amelia’s main teachers in the use of her Gifts. Her mother opposed the use of magic, allowing training for Adam, Amelia’s twin, only because he was the heir. Fortunately, Adam had shared what he’d learned, and their ghostly great-great-grandparents had offered further aid. Grandmother Miranda had taught her summoning and guided her in using her Gifts since she was small.

“Sophie, do you—”

The ballroom winked out of being. In its stead, faint, fuzzy images drifted over shadowy ground. Gradually they resolved into men in blue or red or green uniforms fighting on foot or horseback. She knew those uniforms, worn by Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies and the Allies who opposed him.

A red-jacketed cavalryman charged at her, his sword high. Shrieking, she tried to dodge, only to have him ride through her in a rush of icy cold that made her shiver.

Out, she thought. I need out of this vision. Out.

She tried to put power behind the words, as her ghostly tutors had instructed, but nothing changed. Another rider charged. She scrambled out of his path—and through a red-coated infantryman’s musket barrel. Gasping with cold and terror, she dived under a slashing blade to cower against a waist-high outcropping of rock.

The soldiers fired at each other through air already thick with gunpowder smoke. The din rang in her ears. Smoke and the acrid stench of blood stung her nostrils, and she coughed.

“Amelia!”

As suddenly as it had begun, the vision ended. She was back in the ballroom with Sophie peering at her anxiously. The scents of beeswax and perfumes supplanted those of gunpowder and blood. The musicians still played the same quadrille.

Yet her heart pounded, and her head felt light. Shivering, she clutched her shawl. Her seer Gift had never manifested so strongly on its own. Why now?

“Did I do or say anything odd?” she asked Sophie.

“No, but you looked dazed. What is it?”

“Not here. Let’s find a private place.”

The library or some other unoccupied room would have a fire. Amelia could use the flames to scry, to see if she could develop what she’d Seen.