Off Kilter: a
Buffalo Steampunk Adventure
By Laura
Strickland
Cover designer: Diana
Carlile
Editor: Nan Swanson
James
Kilter has few illusions about himself. Maimed in a boiler accident when young
and routinely reviled by those he encounters, he’s no prize for any woman. He’s
content working security for a good friend until he sees Catherine Delaney
disembark from an airship one May afternoon. Her fragile beauty calls up all
his protective instincts. But will she accept a monster as her defender
Having
traded her own safety to save her young sister, Cat Delaney has landed in the
hands of a ruthless, wealthy man who intends to use her as a pawn to his
avarice. Alone in a strange city, she has nowhere to turn except to the very
man hired to keep her from running. Can she trust James, with his ruined face
and crusader’s spirit? Dare she give him her heart?
James
switched his gaze to the three people who had just disembarked, two men and a
woman, and promptly lost all the breath in his body.
They
made an unlikely enough trio—one of the men willowy and slender, clad in a
splendid suit that screamed wealth, the other broad and squat if also
well-dressed. James dismissed both of them almost immediately, for the third of
the group gathered all his attention and focused it the way a mirror gathers
light.
"That
his doxy?" Latham persisted.
She
wore one of the new tailored gowns of some thin fabric that fluttered around
her slender body in the breeze off the water. Strawberry-blonde hair clustered
round her head in a woven crown of curls and even from fifty paces away James
could see the delicate perfection of her features. She stood between the two
men like a doe trapped by wolves, and something about her demeanor bespoke the
fact that she longed to flee. Suddenly James wanted to tear the two men apart
with his bare hands, rescue her, change her world. He knew he could do it too;
at that moment he could best anyone.
"Nice
piece," Latham muttered. "Wouldn't mind the job of guarding
that."
And
just as abruptly, James wanted to tear Latham apart also, a visceral reaction
that flowed from the core of his being outward to his fists.
"Button
it," Tate snapped before James could. "That's our client, Mr.
Sebastian Boyd—one of the wealthiest men you'll ever meet."
And
with him, James amended in his head, the most beautiful woman he'd ever hoped to
behold.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment