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    The Vanishing Volume: A Light-Hearted Regency Fantasy
    The Vanishing Volume: A Light-Hearted Regency Fantasy
    The Vanishing Volume: A Light-Hearted Regency Fantasy
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    The Vanishing Volume: A Light-Hearted Regency Fantasy

    By Marissa Doyle

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A bestselling author.
    A missing manuscript.
    The readers of London are raging...

    The popular but reclusive author E.C. Spruce has outdone himself with a delicious new three-volume novel, "The Fifty Shades of Udolpho", and all of London—including Annabel and the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s—are devouring it. That is, until the third volume begins vanishing from bookshops and bedside tables alike, leaving readers desperate to know how the story ends.

    Suspecting supernatural forces are at play, Annabel and the Ladies investigate the literary loss. A clever trap reveals an unexpected (and smelly) culprit, but it appears that plot twists aren’t always reserved for the page. Will they be able to bring the thieving mastermind to justice? And could the Marquis of Quinceton actually be more of a help than a disconcerting hindrance?

    The Vanishing Volume is the second installment in The Ladies of Almack's series by Marissa Doyle.

    Click "Buy Now" to follow the Lady Patronesses on their next investigation!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMarissa Doyle
    Release dateApr 4, 2022
    ISBN9781636320403
    The Vanishing Volume: A Light-Hearted Regency Fantasy
    Author

    Marissa Doyle

    Marissa Doyle graduated from Bryn Mawr College and went on to graduate school intending to be an archaeologist but somehow got distracted. After working in a nursing home, in fundraising, and as a stay-at-home mom, she finally figured out what it was she really should be doing (apart from the mom part), and started writing a romance novel. Three books later a perceptive contest judge told her that her story would make a great young adult book, and she hasn’t looked back since.Her young adult books Bewitching Season, Betraying Season, and Courtship and Curses, all from Henry Holt Books for Young Readers/Macmillan, blend history (remember that archaeology background?) with a dash of magic and a heaping tablespoon of romance, and have won multiple awards and recognition in both the romance and children’s literature worlds. She lives in her native Massachusetts with her family, including a bossy pet rabbit, and loves making quilts, sailing, and antiques.Please visit her at her website, www.marissadoyle.com, and at NineteenTeen http://nineteenteen.com.

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    • 3/5
      This one is better than the first in the series. The romance between Anabel and Quinn is such a slow burn that it's now obvious it's going to play out over several books using the combined tropes of enemies to lovers and the rogue with a heart of gold. On a positive note, the author has stopped repeating herself. The mystery this time is a little more interesting than the first book but is resolved so amiably it is almost silly. Still, this is more of a fun book than the first.

    Book preview

    The Vanishing Volume - Marissa Doyle

    About the Book

    Young widow Annabel Chalfont, Countess of Fellbridge, has two small sons to raise, a mountain of her late husband’s debts to pay off, and a secret: she’s a shadow-shaper, able to manipulate shadow as anyone else might clay. She and six other high-born ladies with equally extraordinary abilities defend England against supernatural crime—but the world knows them only as the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s, Regency London’s most exclusive social venue.

    In the second installment of The Ladies of Almack’s series, all of London is enthralled by E.C. Spruce’s latest three-volume novel, The Fifty Shades of Udolpho…until the third volume begins vanishing from bookshops and bedside tables alike, leaving readers dangling and desperate to know what happens next. The Lady Patronesses of Almack’s investigate, with unexpected results—and an unexpected new friendship for Annabel…or perhaps two friendships, if she’ll only admit it…

    I was sold as soon as I saw 'Lady Patronesses of Almack’s with magic.' Characters and situations--sheer delight!

    —Sherwood Smith

    The Vanishing Volume

    A Light-hearted Regency Fantasy

    (The Ladies of Almack's Book 2)

    Marissa Doyle

    King Street Books

    in association with

    Book View Café

    www.bookviewcafe.com

    Book View Café Edition

    April 5, 2022

    ISBN: 978-1-63632-040-3

    Copyright © 2022 Marissa Doyle

    For Scott

    Chapter One

    London, late April 1810

    A Monday Morning

    On Monday morning Annabel, Lady Fellbridge, left for the weekly meeting of Almack’s Lady Patronesses a little early in order to accomplish an important errand. She was slowly clopping around the corner onto Old Bond Street (or rather, her carriage was) when she noticed a familiar figure hurrying in the same direction on the pavement.

    Pull up, please, Thomas, she called to her coachman, then more loudly, Frances! May I offer you a ride?

    Lady Frances Dalrymple, one of Annabel’s fellow Lady Patronesses, looked up and smiled. Annabel! Thank you, but I’ve a stop to make before I go on to King Street. She held up a book. I must just run into Hookham’s.

    Annabel held up her own book. So must I.

    Frances’ smile widened. "The Fifty Shades?"

    What else? Climb in!

    As the groom helped Frances up, Annabel glanced at the blue sky above the buildings around them. Sometimes, being in London on a warm day in late April just seemed wrong. Back at home, my narcissus beds are probably in their glory, she observed with a small sigh.

    "Back at my home, the flowerbeds—not that we have many because my father doesn’t approve of them—might still be under six inches of snow. Of course, that’s Scotland for you," Frances added philosophically.

    Why doesn’t your father approve of flowerbeds?

    Flowers make him sneeze. And… Frances hunched her shoulders. Flowerbeds would mean hiring more gardeners than are needed to just keep the grass scythed and the kitchen gardens growing.

    Ah. Annabel could sympathize with that. Only the knowledge that their families would likely starve if she didn’t keep the gardeners at Chalfont employed had prevented her from reducing the outdoor staff.

    But I know what you mean, Frances continued, hurriedly. Spring does seem rather wasted on the Season, doesn’t it? Then again, if we were in the country, neither of us would likely have a circulating library close by. I do hope they have two copies of the third volume available, she added, patting her book.

    So do I, or one of us will have to call the other out. Pistols at dawn and everything. Annabel chuckled. Except that our seconds will be too busy themselves, fighting over who gets to read it first.

    It had been more than a week since her sons Will and Martin and their friend Gus had returned to Eton, and to keep from missing them too much, Annabel had plunged into an orgy of novel-reading in her free time, visiting Hookham’s Circulating Library almost every other day. Emily Cowper had told her she simply had to read E.C. Spruce’s latest, The Fifty Shades of Udolpho, which had come out just a few weeks before and had taken the reading public of London by storm.

    "Have you read The Fifty Shades yet? had replaced good morning" as a greeting among her acquaintances. Conversations everywhere, from chance encounters in the street to dinners in the houses of the Ton, revolved around whether the lovers Ermentrudina and Osberto would be able to escape the horde of dread phantoms—the Fifty Shades of the title—that plagued the ruinous Apennine castle in which they had taken refuge whilst fleeing Ermentrudina’s sinister suitor, Count Atroccio, and her equally sinister stepmother, the Marchesa dell’Obesa. Annabel had devoured those first two volumes in two days, and was now bent on the devouring the third, as was Frances…hence the threat of pistols at dawn if only one copy were available.

    As they drew up in front of Hookham’s Circulating Library, Frances glanced at the watch at her waist. We should just have time before the meeting starts…and wasn’t I clever, being on the right side of the street just as your carriage went by? Because now I can get out and into Hookham’s first!

    Annabel laughed. ‘O, thou fiend! O, I am undone!’ she quoted. They were the last words of volume two, uttered by Ermentrudina as the Count bundled her into a antique coach at the height of a furious tempest, while the Marchesa lured Osberto into a death-like stupor with her seductive but poisonous perfume.

    "Do you think he’ll ravish her?" Frances asked anxiously as they entered the shop.

    Who? Osberto? I’m not sure he’d be capable at the moment—

    Frances giggled. No, silly! The Count and Ermentrudina.

    "Oh. I shouldn’t think so. An old, badly sprung traveling carriage is hardly a conducive setting for a ravishment. On the other hand, the use of the word ‘undone’ does make one wonder about the state of her stays… But this is E.C. Spruce, so who knows?"

    They approached the counter, where a harried-looking young man was talking to another subscriber, an older woman in a velvet turban adorned with down-sweeping lavender-dyed ostrich feathers. What do you mean, you don’t have it? the lady was saying, her plumes quivering with the force of her indignation.

    I’m sorry, your ladyship, but they’re all out. Several are overdue, in fact. If you wish, I shall add your name to our list to be informed as soon as a copy is available—

    But you do not understand—I cannot wait that long! her ladyship cried. "Or rather, it’s…it’s my elderly mother. Yes, my dearest mama. She is on her deathbed, you see, and only my reading The Fifty Shades of Udolpho to her can soothe her dying sufferings! Will you condemn my poor mama to such a fate? I must have a copy now!"

    The clerk looked appropriately sympathetic, but Annabel noticed the way his lips twitched before he mastered his expression. Madam, were it in my power, I should provide it to you immediately. But I cannot give you what I do not have. I am certain a copy will come in later—or tomorrow. Perhaps these ladies—? He looked at Annabel and Frances hopefully.

    They shook their heads. Volume two, Frances said, raising her book.

    Ah. He turned back to the woman. In the meanwhile, perhaps your mother might enjoy a nice book of sermons? In such extremity, they might prove a comfort—

    The woman drew herself up. If you will not have mercy on a dying woman, perhaps another library will. She turned and swept toward the door, barely allowing her footman time to open it for her and get out of her way.

    Oh, dear, Frances said, coming up to the counter after she was gone. We could not help overhearing—

    The clerk struggled manfully for a moment, then grinned. "That was the

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