About The Book:
Title: HARBOR FOR THE NIGHTINGALE (Stranje
House #4)
Author: Kathleen Baldwin
Pub. Date: September 26, 2019
Publisher: Ink Lion Books
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 352
Harbor for the Nightingale is the
highly anticipated fourth installment in the popular award-winning Stranje
House YA series! #1 New York Times best-selling author Meg Cabot calls
this romantic Regency adventure series "completely original and totally
engrossing."
"Enticing from the first sentence." --New York Times Sunday
Book Review on A School for Unusual Girls
"Baldwin has a winning series here: her characters are intriguing
and fully rendered." --Booklist, on Refuge for Masterminds
It's 1814. In this alternate history, Napoleon has forced Europe to its knees, and
now he plots to seize control of Britain.
Maya brings the mystery of India with her...
With her friends' lives in deadly peril, Miss Maya Barrington, one of
Miss Stranje's unusual girls, must serve as a double agent. To do so, she gains
entry into Napoleon's duplicitous game on the arm of the enigmatic Lord
Kinsworth. She can read almost everyone; not so with this young rascal. Quick
with a jest and armed with lethal charm, Kinsworth remains just beyond her
reach. Can she trust him?
With Britain's future at risk and those she loves in deadly peril, Maya
questions everything she thought she understood about life, love, and loyalty.
Fans of genre-blending, romance, and action will love this speculative
history Regency-era novel filled with spunky heroines, handsome young lords,
and dastardly villains--fourth in the Stranje House series. Don't miss the
first three books: A School for Unusual Girls, Exile for Dreamers, and
Refuge for Masterminds
"An outstanding alternative history series entry and a must-have for
teen libraries." --School Library Journal on Refuge
for Masterminds
"This alternative history series will appeal to fans of Gail
Carriger's works and The Cecelia and Kate novels by Patricia C. Wrede and
Caroline Stevermer." --School Library Journal on A
School for Unusual Girls
Title: REFUGE FOR MASTERMINDS (Stranje House #3)
Author: Kathleen Baldwin
Pub. Date: May 23, 2017
Publisher: Tor Teen
Format: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook
Pages: 352
It’s 1814. Napoleon has escaped his imprisonment on Elba. Britain is at
war on four fronts. And at Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, five
young ladies are secretly being trained for a world of spies, diplomacy, and
war…
Napoleon’s invasion of England is underway and someone at Stranje House
is sneaking information to his spies. Lady Jane Moore is determined to find out
who it is. If anyone can discover the traitor, it is Jane—for, according to
headmistress Emma Stranje, Lady Jane is a mastermind.
Jane doesn’t consider herself a mastermind. It’s just that she tends to
grasp the facts of a situation quickly, and by doing so, she’s able to devise
and implement a sensible course of action. Is Jane enough of a mastermind to
save the brash young American inventor Alexander Sinclair, her friends at
Stranje House, and possibly England itself?
Title: EXILE FOR
DREAMERS (Stranje House #2)
Author: Kathleen
Baldwin
Pub. Date: May 24, 2016
Publisher: Tor Teen
Format: Hardcover, Paperback,
eBook
A School for Unusual Girls is the first captivating installment in the
Stranje House series for young adults by award-winning author Kathleen Baldwin.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot calls this romantic
Regency adventure "completely original and totally engrossing."
Tess can't run far enough or fast enough to escape the prophetic dreams that haunt her. Dreams bring nothing but death and grief, and Tess refuses to accept that she may be destined for the same madness that destroyed her mother. Until her disturbing dreams become the only means of saving Lord Ravencross, the man she loves, and her friends at Stranje House from Lady Daneska and her lover, the Ghost-agent of Napoleon, who has escaped from Elba. Can the young ladies of Stranje House prevail once more? Or is England destined to fall into the hands of the power-mad dictator?
"Enticing from the first sentence." -New York Times Book Review
A School for Unusual Girls is a great next read for fans of Gail Carriger's Finishing School series and Robin LaFevers' His Fair Assassin series.
Title: A SCHOOL FOR UNUSUAL GIRLS (Stranje House #1)
Author: Kathleen Baldwin
Pub. Date: May 19, 2015
Publisher: Tor Teen
Pages: 352
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook
It’s 1814. Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is
at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has
become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau
monde who don't fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje
House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think.
In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for
the young ladies—plans that entangle the girls in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy,
and war.
After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts...
Now on to the excerpt!
One
Miss Maya Barrington’s
Typhoon
July
1814, Mayfair, London, Haversmythe House
Miss
Stranje hosts a coming-out ball for her young ladies
All the world
is sound. Even if I were blind, I would still be able to see. It is as
if everything
hums—the
trees, air, stones, and people—especially people. They all sing
songs.
Some songs are
more dangerous than others.
Most of the
guests have already arrived at the ball, and our receiving line is dwindling.
Georgie, Lady
Jane, and Tess left us to join a lively country-dance. Seraphina still stands quietly beside
me. Her inner music wraps around her as delicately as does the silk of her cloud-blue
ballgown. With her white-blonde hair, Sera is the closest thing to an angel I
have ever seen. On my other side, stands our rock, our headmistress, Miss
Stranje, a woman made of iron.
The footman at
the doors announces another arrival. “Lord and Lady Barrington.”
My father and his
wife stand in the doorway. The instruments playing serenely within
me crash to a
stop and clatter to the floor of my soul.
He
came.
I press my hand
against my heart to keep it from flapping and shrieking like a strangled bird. Seraphina
edges closer so that our shoulders touch. She is trying to lend me strength.
The ballroom overflows
with people. Dozens of strangers clad in shimmering finery,
surround us,
laughing and talking, but my very English stepmother ignores them all and marches straight
for the receiving line. She holds her nose aloft, and her mouth pinched up so tight that her
porcelain white face looks almost skeletal. An out of tune clarinet, she squeaks toward
us, every step making me wish I could stop up my ears.
People say she is
beautiful. My father certainly must have thought so. I fail to see it,
especially when
her face prunes up as it is doing now. It is a familiar expression. One that
causes me to quake nervously while simultaneously clenching my fists.
Stepmother.
That is what I was instructed to call her. I cannot bring myself to do it.
Mother
is a title of sacred honor. This woman, whose soul honks like an
out of tune oboe, hasn’t the faintest motherly inclination toward me. To me,
she will never be anything more than the woman who married my father. Never
mind that my mother, his first wife, was a Maharajah’s daughter. To the new
Lady Barrington, I am merely the brown-skinned embarrassment her husband
acquired in India. Her hate roars at me like high tide slamming against a rocky
shore.
She halts, and
her blond sausage curls quiver with distaste as she plants herself squarely in front of Miss
Stranje. She does not curtsey or even nod in response to our headmistress’s
greeting.
Her words trickle
out so sweetly that most people would not notice she is gritting her
teeth as she
utters them. “Miss Stranje, a word if you please.”
Naturally,
Seraphina notices. She notices everything—it is her gift. And
her curse. She reaches for my
hand to reassure me. Of the five of us, we who are Miss Stranje’s students,
Seraphina Wyndham is the only one who truly understands me, and I do not want
my best friend to suffer if she is caught being supportive of me. So, I smile
reassuringly and slip free of her fingers. This is my battle, and I must face
it alone.
Sera tugs my arm
as I step away and furtively whispers, “Do something. Calm her.”
She, like
everyone else at Stranje House, mistakenly thinks my voice contains some sort of magical power
to soothe. It is much simpler than that. My grandmother taught me how to use
certain tones and cadences to relax people and communicate tranquility. Most
souls are more than receptive, they hunger for it. My father’s wife is a
different matter. I have tried in the past, and rather than succumb to my
calming tactics, she resists. On several occasions, she even covered her ears
and screeched at me. I remember well her accusations of witchcraft and demonic
bedevilment. It was on those grounds she convinced my father to send me away to
Stranje House.
I wish, for Miss
Stranje’s sake, Lady Barrington would let me quiet her rat-like tendency to snipe and
bite. Although, I’m not worried. I am confident our headmistress has guessed
what is coming and will manage my father’s wife quite handily without my help.
After all, a rat does not surprise an owl.
“This way, Lady
Barrington.” Miss Stranje graciously directs our bristling guest to the side of the
receiving line.
Father’s charming
wife clasps my shoulder and propels me forward with her. I could not possibly soothe
her now. I’m not nearly composed enough to do it. Indeed, I am battling an
overwhelming inclination to yank her boney claw from my shoulder and twist it
until she cries off.
“What have you
done, Miss Stranje?” Lady Barrington releases me and waves her hand at my ensemble.
She is objecting to Miss Stranje’s ingenious innovation, a traditional sari
draped over an English ballgown.
“Why have you
dressed the child thus?” Lady Barrington’s fingers close in a fist around the embroidered
veil covering my hair. “I’m mortified! You’ve garbed her like a heathen. Surely, this is
an affront to everyone here.” She flicks the saffron silk away as if it has
soiled her gloves. “How do you expect Lord Barrington and myself to weather
this . . . this outrage!”
She barks so loud
that some of our guests turn to stare.
“After the
enormous sum we paid you, it is beyond my comprehension why you should do us such a
disservice—”
“Lady
Barrington!” Miss Stranje’s tone chops through the woman’s tirade. “Calm
yourself.” Our
headmistress stands a good four or five inches taller than most women, and she
straightens to make every inch count. “You sadly mistake the matter, my lady.
The other guests are well acquainted with your husband’s daughter. In fact, a
few weeks ago she was invited by no less a personage than Lady Jersey to sing
at Carlton House for the Prince Regent. Miss Barrington’s voice impressed His
Highness so greatly that he, the highest
authority in the land,
suggested your stepdaughter ought to be declared a national treasure.”
“What?” Lady
Barrington blinks at this news, but her astonishment is short-lived. She
clears her throat
and steps up emboldened. “Oh, that.
I am well aware of Maya’s ability to mesmerize others with her voice. She uses
demonic trickery, and you ought not allow—”
Miss Stranje
leans forward, her tone low and deadly. “Are you unaware of the fact that Lady Castlereagh
issued Miss Barrington vouchers for Almack’s?”
“Al-Almack’s . .
.” Lady Barrington sputters at the mention of high society’s most exclusive social
club. Her hands flutter to her mouth in disbelief. “No. That can’t be. Lady Castlereagh
approved of her?”
She glances sideways at me and her upper lips curls as if she tastes something
foul in the air.
“Yes. Her
vouchers were signed and sealed by the great lady herself.” Miss Stranje’s face transforms into a
mask of hardened steel under which most people tremble in fear. “Not to put too
fine a point on it, my lady, but Miss Barrington has been granted entry into
the highest social circles. And, more to the point, it is my understanding that
the patronesses refused to grant you vouchers. You were denied, is that not
so?”
Lady Barrington
steps back, unwilling to answer, a hand clutching her throat.
Miss Stranje
refuses to let her quarry wriggle away. “In fact, my dear lady, anyone planning
a soiree or ball during the remainder of the season, anyone
who is anyone, has invited Miss Barrington to attend. I
have stacks of invitations, dozens of notes, all of them begging your husband’s
daughter to do them the honor of singing at their gatherings. Indeed, society
has taken her under their wing so thoroughly I had rather thought you would be offering
me a bonus, instead of this ill-conceived reprimand.”
Miss Stranje
turns and levels a shrewd gaze at my father, who until this moment stood behind us
silently observing.
He places a hand
on his wife’s waist and moves her aside. This stranger, this formidable Englishman who I
used to call Papa with such glee, steps up to my headmistress and takes her
measure. After a moment that stretches long enough to hammer my stomach into mincemeat,
he nods respectfully. “Very well, Miss Stranje. I shall send additional
remuneration to you in the morning.”
His wife gasps,
and indignation squeals off her like sour yellow gas.
He turns to me
and reaches for my hand. Every instinct in me shouts to pull back. Do
not
let him touch you. It has been many long years since I have
seen anything resembling a fatherly mannerism from him. I am terrified of what
I might feel, and yet even more terrified of what I might miss if I pull away.
A sharp intake of
breath crosses my lips, but then all other sounds cease. I no longer
hear laughter or
talking from the guests in the ballroom. No footsteps. No shuffling or
clattering. The
hum of impenetrable silence muffles everything else as I watch him lift my hand.
My father bows
slightly, the way all the other gentlemen did as they came through the receiving line.
He holds my fingers loosely as if we are mere acquaintances. “You look lovely, Maya,
very much like your mother.” He straightens, and I think I hear a whiff of sound—a
soft keening, low and mournful. Except it is so brief and distant, I cannot be certain.
“You have her
fire in your eyes. She would be proud.” He squares his shoulders. “I’m
pleased to see
you making your way in the world—flourishing on your own.”
Flourishing?
Hardly.
Unable to summon
enough breath for words, I dip in an English curtsey that has
become a habit.
When I am able to speak, it sounds embarrassingly weak and fluttery, like a frightened
bird. “I am glad you think so, my lord.”
He lets go of my
gloved fingers, offers his arm to his wife, and leaves me. Without a
backward glance,
he walks away. His measured gait is aloof and elegant, no different from that
of a hundred other strangers in this room. The hollow thump of his heels as he abandons me hurts
far worse than anything the spiteful woman he married has ever said.
I wish now that I
had not allowed him to touch me. I ought to have run from the
house—anything
would be better than this grinding loneliness that darkens my insides. I would rather rip
out my heart than to fall into the chasm threatening to swallow me. I’ve been
in that dark place before.
The way he
dismisses me without a second thought sends me spiraling back to India.
I’m there again,
in the stifling heat of his sickroom. Worried, I sneaked in to see him and stood quietly at
the foot of his bed. Fear thumped through me like an elephant march as I watched
him thrash under the sheets, fevered with the same epidemic that had only days earlier
taken my mother’s life.
I remember his
wide-eyed alarm when he noticed me standing by his bedpost. I was only six, but
I can still hear his hoarse shout for the servants. “Get her out of here. Send
her away!”
“No! No. I want
to stay with you. Let me stay with you,” I begged. Crying, I clung to his
bedpost, refusing
to leave.
“Go! Take the chi—”
Retching cut his rebuke short. Next came a string of muffled
curses. “Out!”
“Come, miss. You
cannot stay. Your father is very sick.” Servants dragged me, kicking
and screaming
from his room. Later, my ayah told
me Papa wanted me to stay away so that I would not catch his illness. I will
never know if that was true or not. My ayah may
have been trying to spare my feelings. I do remember telling her I didn’t care
if I got sick and died. I would rather stay with my papa.
“No, kanya.
No, little girl. You must not say such things.” She brushed my hair until it
gleamed like my
papa’s black boots. “You will live, child. I see this. The future blooms in you. You are gende
ka phool.” She pulled a marigold out of a small vase and placed it in my
palms. “Protector. Sun lion.” I touched the bright orange petals and thought to
myself, what good is such a small flower. It is too fragile—too
easily crushed.
I
was right.
The next day, on
Papa’s orders, his secretary, a fusty man with little patience for children, escorted
me to my grandmother’s family in the north. My father sent me away from the
only world I’d ever known. On that long trip, loneliness and hurt chewed me up.
Why would he send me so far away? Was he too sick? Or was his grief too heavy
for him to share in mine? Perhaps my black hair and olive skin reminded him too
much of my dead mother.
Or was it because
she was gone that he no longer cared for me?
Why?
We traveled for
days and days, journeying toward the great mountains, land of the five rivers, and all
the way there, sadness gnawed on my soul.
Few Europeans had
ever ventured to the old villages and cities along the rivers. People were wary and
distrustful of my white escort. He had difficulty finding a guide, and even when he did, we
made several wrong turns. I did not care. Numb with grief, certain my father would die,
or that he no longer loved me. I was already a lost child. What did it matter if we
wandered forever?
After several
treacherous river crossings, our guide located my family’s village on the
Tawi River. The
weary attaché deposited me and my trunks in their midst and hurriedly left. I sat in
the dirt beside my baggage, completely abandoned. The last ember of hope flickered inside
me and blew out.
Strangers, who I
would learn later were my cousins and aunts, gathered in a circle
around me,
staring, their faces ripe with curiosity and suspicion. Half-English,
half-Indian, I was an unwelcome oddity, who belonged nowhere. I sat in the
center of their circle, feeling like an oddly painted lizard. Did they judge me
poisonous? Or edible?
A woman’s joyous
cry startled me. Astonished, I stood up. In my exhausted state, amidst all the
confusion, I briefly mistook her voice for my mother’s. I stared at the old
woman running toward
me. The voice, although eerily similar, did not belong to my dead mother.
It belonged to my
grandmother.
She burst through
her gathered kinsman, took one look at me, and opened her arms.
Though I learned
later she had only visited me once as an infant, she kissed my forehead and hugged me,
rocking and murmuring in Hindi. In tears, she declared to all my cousins and aunts that I
was her daughter returned home.
Grandmother, my naanii,
did not care about my mixed blood. She had no qualms about teaching her
half-caste granddaughter the ways of her people. Others in our village were not
so quick to trust me. I was half-English, after all. But out of respect for my
grandmother, they kept their opinions to themselves. Naanii
taught me how to make bread, how to mix healing herbs, braid
hair, sew, and a thousand other things.
More importantly,
Naanii taught me to listen.
To hear the world
around us.
Over and over,
she told me, “All life sings a song if we will but stop and listen.”
I remember
standing on the banks of the river washing clothes. “Close your eyes, little bird,” Naanii
said. “Quiet your mind and tell me what you hear?”
I pointed to her
kinswoman standing in the shallows scrubbing her laundry against the stones. “I hear
Kanishka humming a contented tune.”
Grandmother, ever
patient, smiled and asked, “And the stones, little one, what do they sing?”
I laughed and
closed my eyes tight, listening for subtler vibrations. “They are old, Naanii. Their voices are
quiet and deep. I can hardly hear them. Kanishka sings too loudly, so does the wind in
the trees and grass.” I opened my eyes. “And the river is especially loud.”
“Ahh.” She
nodded, wrung out the cloth she’d been laundering, and set it in her basket.
“It is true.
Water is bold and brash. Very noisy.” She galloped her fingers through the air.
“Always rushing
to and fro. River thinks she is all-powerful. You must try harder, my child.
Listen for the
calm voice of the stones.” She laid a smooth pebble in my palm and pointed to
one of the large rocks jutting up, splitting the current of the river. “Do you
feel it? The mighty waters push and shove with the strength of a hundred
horses, yet that boulder is unmoved. Hear how deep it hums, how sure it is of
its connection with mother earth.”
Years later, I
would hear the stones sing, but not that day. That day I heard my grandmother, not
just her words; I heard the unfathomable vibrations of her soul. It was as if
she was as ancient and knowing as the stones of which she spoke.
I wish I were
still standing on the banks of the Tawi River. Instead, I am here in London with too many
sounds roaring in my ears—the
babble of our many guests, the rumble of the city seeping up through the bones
of this house. My father has taken me half a world away from the person who
loves me best in all the world. Even though she is thousands of miles away, I
close my eyes, hoping to catch my grandmother’s distant pulse. I try to block
out all the other noises, searching for those melodic threads that run between
us even at this great distance.
“Maya? Maya! Are
you all right?” Lady Jane rests her hand on my shoulder and startles me out of my
search. She and Sera stare at me expectantly. “The musicians are tuning up for
a quadrille. We are about to return to the dancing. But you seem shaken, what’s wrong?”
I look at Lady
Jane, wondering how to answer. I am not all right,
as she phrases it, but what else can I
say, here in this jangling place. “Yes, I hear the music,” I say, and try to
smile as if it is an important observation, as if the frivolity of dancing
lightens my heart.
“Hmm,” she says
skeptically, and takes my hand, pulling me along with her like the
mighty river
carrying a piece of driftwood. I feel her questions clamoring to be asked, but luckily,
I also know Lady Jane will restrain herself. This is not the time or place for
that sort of discussion. She glances around the room and spots Alexander
Sinclair. Immediately she brightens, and I feel joy pulse through her
fingertips.
“Come.” She leads the way and, arm
in arm, we face both the music and crowd together.
About Kathleen:
Award-winning author, Kathleen Baldwin, loves adventure in books and in
real life. She taught rock climbing in the Rockies, survival camped in the
desert, was stalked by a mountain lion, lost an argument with a rattlesnake,
enjoyed way too many classes in college, fell in love at least a dozen times,
and married her very own hero. Together they’ve raised four free-spirited
adventurous children.
SCHOOL FOR UNUSUAL GIRLS is her first historical romance for Young
Adults. Awarded 2016 Spirit of Texas, it is also a Junior Library Guild
selection. Publisher’s Lunch listed it in 2015 YA BookBuzz. Scholastic licensed
it for book fairs. Ian Bryce, producer of Spiderman, Saving Private Ryan, and
other notable films optioned the series for film.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot calls Kathleen’s romantic
Regency adventure, “completely original and totally engrossing.”
Giveaway Details:
1 winner will receive a finished copy of HARBOR FOR THE
NIGHTINGALE. US Only.
Tour Schedule
Week One:
9/23/2019- Caffeine & Composition- Excerpt
9/24/2019- Dazzled by Books- Excerpt
9/25/2019- Two Chicks on Books- Excerpt
9/26/2019- Wishful Endings- Review
9/27/2019- Fire and Ice- Review
Week Two:
9/30/2019- Don't Judge, Read- Interview
10/1/2019- Smada's Book Smack- Review
10/2/2019- Lisa Loves Literature- Review
10/3/2019- Book Briefs- Review
10/4/2019- BookHounds YA- Interview
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