This collection brings together the first three novellas in the Scotland Steampunk series: Tea Dreams, Flying High, and Hidden Depths.
Tea Dreams
Constable Genevieve Conlon has been a mess since her best friend and colleague was killed in an botched operation two years ago. When her boss gives her an ultimatum-go undercover on a tea-smuggling airship or face the sack-she knows it's her last chance to hang onto her job.
Will Eisman is the second son of Scotland's most powerful crime family, and has always played second fiddle to his brother, John. Now he's finally been given his own mission, flying a shipment of smuggled tea from Hong Kong to Edinburgh, and with it the chance to finally prove his worth to his parents-and to himself. What he doesn't expect is a last-minute change of crew and a new-and very attractive-first mate.
Thrown together on a transcontinental voyage, the policewoman and the criminal find they have more in common than they thought. But Will has a secret that could ruin everything, and in Edinburgh Gen's colleagues are waiting, handcuffs at the ready...
Flying High
At age fifteen, Millie Roberts made history with her round-the-world airship flight, only to crumble under the weight of relentless media scrutiny. Now, ten years later, she's rebuilt her life and thrown herself into a new cause: votes for brasscores-people who, like her, have clockwork enhancements. But her distrust of journalists runs deep, and when she's asked to drum up publicity for the movement, it brings back everything she thought she'd buried.
Nick Galbraith has done the hard yards as a beat reporter at Edinburgh's trashiest tabloid, but he doesn't have much to show for it. When his boss asks him to do an in-depth story on the brasscore rights movement, he sees a chance to finally make a name for himself, and maybe even get a front-page exclusive. He has no idea that his editor has other, more nefarious, plans.
As the activists' campaign intensifies, Millie and Nick are forced to look beyond their own preconceptions-and they like what they see. But a group of Edinburgh's most powerful men, including Nick's boss, will do everything they can to thwart the brasscores. And in doing so, they might just tear Nick and Millie apart forever.
Hidden Depths
Michael Galbraith has it all-his innovative technology, which revolutionised the thermocrystal mining industry, brought him wealth, fame and respect. But when one of his inventions fails catastrophically, it takes Michael's career with it. Now, his only option is an engineering job at a thermocrystal mine in the remote Scottish Highlands. He might as well be sent to the moon.
Astoria Penrose has been working in the Braithwaite mine since she was fifteen, just like her father and grandfather before her. But she knows there's more to life than harvesting thermocrystals-if she can only get her hands on it. After years of studying at night and working her way up the ladder, she's finally in reach of the job that will be her ticket to greater things, only to have it snatched from her by a trumped-up engineer from Edinburgh.
Astoria knows she should support Michael for the good of the company, but she can't help resenting him, especially since he clearly doesn't want to be there. Yet when a series of frightening accidents forces them to collaborate, they realise that they make good partners-in every sense. But someone is working to sabotage the mine and will stop at nothing to get what they want, even if it destroys everything Astoria and Michael hold dear.
Elizabeth Wren is an Australian author with a passion for the Victorian era, especially the might-have-been and never-was Victorian world of steampunk. She enjoys writing men with feelings, women with brains, and couples with happily-ever-afters. Elizabeth lives in Sydney with her husband and daughter.
