MARIAH TORSNEY

Roseleigh

In 1916 Dublin, Donnacha Cavanagh slips into U-boat-patrolled waters in a steamer trunk. It’s the only way to escape a vengeful detective who’s pinned a nationalist bombing on the wrong man. Donnacha makes a desperate, damnable, possibly brilliant gamble: he dons his dead brother’s priestly collar to hide in a remote Derbyshire parish. And should it all go to ballyhooley, it’s the sham justice of the firing squad or the meatgrinder of the front.

Above the village at Roseleigh, a grand estate now half war hospital, Anglo-Indian Lily Lawrence tends the wounded. She counts the days until war’s end, when marriage into Roseleigh will make her irreproachable—done by Christmas? Piffle! When her fiancé is killed in the trenches, his brother Ashcroft Stevens—Roseleigh’s ruthless heir—moves quickly. He makes his position plain: unfit for marriage, she can become his mistress or leave penniless. But Lily knows a gilded cage when she sees one.

Patching men up to return them to the slaughter, Donnacha and Lily are drawn together—both frauds performing to survive. But when Donnacha discovers he has unknowingly been transporting heroin for Ashcroft, he strikes the devil’s own bargain with the detective: Ashcroft for his freedom. If the double-cross is discovered, it puts a target on Lily’s back. If the detective reneges, Donnacha is bound for the gallows. And if Lily stands with him, she risks the one thing she has fought hardest to secure: the right to decide her own future.

Select Praise for Roseleigh

Roseleigh received rave reviews from anonymous, unbiased readers of The History Quill. Here is a little of what they said:

Slide 1

“As a light-skinned POC, I really related to [Lily’s] story; not white enough for the English, not dark enough for her home country. Lily’s story tugged at me in ways that I’ve never felt in a novel before. Her fierce determination and early naivety giving way to her becoming a bystander to her own life was so beautifully tragic.”

—H. Buttery

Slide 2

“Of all the stories I have so far downloaded this was my favorite.  … plausible, poignant and intriguing.  A very good job indeed!”

—Clare Ivers

Slide 3

“I loved the early scenes in India and Ireland. I felt they were crafted to perfection with a wonderful amount of detail and I got a wonderful sense of place. … The anger which also permeated the early part of the book was also very powerful and engaging, it really helped to bring to life the reality of Irish life at the time, and also the futility of war.”

—Rebecca Batley

Slide 4

“I genuinely found this book to be something of a ‘page-turner’ and didn’t lose interest at any part in the story.”

—Nicholas Smart

Slide 4

“I found [Ashcroft] to be one of the best villains I have read about in a long time. The hatred for him grows from a slight dislike for an untrustworthy man, to oh-my-goodness, this guy is pure liquid evil …”

—Vikki Lee-Mullender

Slide 4

“The story is delightfully original. I liked that it has lots of strong women throughout the novel that are fighting traditional rules and roles.”

—B. Ball