Publisher's Synopsis
The Curiosity Chronicles: Books 1-3. Agents, spies, and tinkerers conspire in this collection of three romantic steampunk tales. This set contains novels The Lady Machinist, The Armored Doctor, and The Industrial Spy. The Curiosity Chronicles takes place in an alternative steampunk world during the 1830s-40s.The Lady Machinist: Lydia Dimosthenis detests pirates. She will do anything to protect her island home of Aspasia from the scurvy knaves, even if it means crafting seven-foot clockwork soldiers to drive them away. When her automatons catch the eye of Rhys Cartret, a charming yet stubborn ambassador from New Britannia, she is given an offer she truly cannot refuse. But it doesn't stop her from trying. As for Rhys, he didn't count on having a strong-willed, attractive inventor thwarting his every diplomatic move. It's hard enough keeping his pirate past a secret. Matching wits with Lydia is the last thing he needs since New Britannia's rival France is also racing to get the automatons.The Armored Doctor: Dr. Jacob Valerian is considered an eccentric by London society. Bearing the physical and mental scars of his stint as a medic in the India campaigns, he returns home to help accident victims regain mobility with his revolutionary line of artificial mechanical limbs. When evidence surfaces that his designs are being stolen by a criminal French industrialist, word spreads that his new assistant, the pretty and plucky Miss Abigail Benton, may be part of the conspiracy. All secrets between them must be laid bare in order to clear her name.The Industrial Spy: Dominique Fontaine has operated as an undercover agent for the French Bureau de L'Industrie ever since her family's business was shut down by the criminal industrialist Emile Broussard. Keen on bringing him to justice, she assumes the identity of a worker at one of his illegally-run flour mills. Engineer Colton Smythe, an agent of New Britannia's Cabinet of Intellectual Curiosities, is on a hunt for the man he believes is responsible for his mother's death. When the COIC orders him to team with headstrong Dominique to infiltrate a metal foundry in northwest France, he must choose between completing the mission or fulfilling a personal vendetta.
