Sheer Madness
A Buffalo Steampunk Adventure
By
Laura Strickland
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Steampunk Romance
All her life, Topaz
Hathor has denied her ability to see the spirits of the dead. She despises her
father—an infamous spiritualist—for exploiting his wealthy patrons and the
souls that flock to him. But when the spirit of an attractive man appears in
her bedroom claiming he's been drawn to Topaz rather than her father, she sits
up and takes notice.
Though not dead,
Romney Marsh has been banished from his body while confined to an asylum and
can't remember much besides his name. Yet he can feel Topaz's spirit calling to
his, and he's not leaving until she agrees to help him. Through an increasingly
violent spiral of danger and their discovery of unspeakable undertakings, they
bond ever more closely. But can Topaz be in love with a man she's never
touched, or would that be sheer madness?
He observed as,
clad only in a silken dressing gown, she spoke at length with a dark-haired
man—discussing him.
And when the
dark-haired man—her brother?—went out, leaving the two of them alone, seen and
unseen, he knew it would be now or never.
Concentrating with
unprecedented intensity, he hovered beside her bed, pictured himself as he knew
he appeared when in his body, and did his best to make himself look solid.
She turned. Her
unusual golden eyes widened, and she saw him.
About bloody time,
he thought with a victorious rush. And now what? Could they communicate?
“Who are you?” she
breathed in a low, husky voice that should have raised his pulse—did, for all
he knew, back where his body lay.
“You can see me?”
he asked, projecting the word-thoughts into her mind the way he had projected
his image.
“Of course I can
see you. Why else would I ask who you are?”
“Romney Marsh,” he
supplied the name to which he clung so hard.
Her eyebrows, like
two black slashes above those incredible eyes, twitched. “Well, Mr. Romney
Marsh, you’ve strayed to the wrong place.”
“I don’t think so.”
“The party’s
downstairs in the solarium, where my father’s summoning the souls of the dearly
departed. You must have taken a wrong turn at the stairs.”
“No. I don’t want
him. I want you.” Abruptly he realized it for truth: he wanted her as only a
man possessed of flesh could—and surging flesh, at that. It made no sense, yet
he couldn’t deny it.
She shifted
slightly on the balls of her feet the way she had just before she took on the
two thugs who’d come through the window. Did she, then, think she needed to
fight him off?
He said quickly,
“I’m not here to harm you. Rather, I need your help.”
She tipped her
head. The black hair slid over one shoulder to caress a generous breast. His
nonexistent fingers itched.
“I’m not able to
help you.” She waved a hand in the air. “Be gone, spirit, to the next realm.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you
can.” She leaned toward him, and her gaze moved over him with considerable
interest. “Do not partake in my father’s mischief. Spare yourself that. Move on
and embrace peace. I dismiss—”
“No.” He moved
closer, and her eyes widened again. “Don’t do that. Don’t send me away.”
She drew herself up
to her considerable height, which had he possessed his body must nearly match
his. “But, Mr. Marsh, it’s where you belong.”
“It isn’t.”
“Give me one good
reason why,” she challenged.
He could give her
the very best of reasons. “I’m not dead.”
Born in Buffalo and
raised on the Niagara Frontier, Laura Strickland has been an avid reader and
writer since childhood. To her the spunky, tenacious, undefeatable ethnic mix
that is Buffalo spells the perfect setting for a little Steampunk, so she
created her own Victorian world there. She knows the people of Buffalo are stronger,
tougher and smarter than those who haven’t survived the muggy summers and
blizzard blasts found on the shores of the mighty Niagara. Tough enough to
survive a squad of automatons? Well, just maybe.
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