Pitch
Enola Holmes meets Six of Crows in this multi-POV historical young adult fantasy. It’s 1880 where a queen sits on the throne, but that doesn’t mean society smiles kindly upon ambitious females. Four girls from vastly different worlds—an aspiring doctor, the ruthless daughter of a brothel worker, a defiant aristocrat and her kind maid—are thrust together by fate. Bound by a shared yearning for more than what life has offered, they embark on a treacherous mission to uncover the secrets of the card magic pulsing through the city’s cobblestone streets. In the hope of garnering a slice of power to carve out their own destinies in a world that dares to underestimate them.
Chapter One
Florence Playing with Fire
The doorbell trills, its sharpness pulling my attention from the book in my lap—An Ophthalmologist’s Guide to the Eye. It’s bound to be the baker’s boy at this time. I hear my father’s unhurried footsteps on the hallway tiles and return to the labelled sketch of a human eye. I try again to memorise the different layers. But I’m interrupted by the shrill screech of our doorbell being persistently rung before a commotion bursts through the front door.
‘I can’t see! I can’t see!’
‘It won’t come out, doctor,’ says a voice marginally calmer than the shrieking man. ‘It’s wedged—’
‘You shouldn’t have tried to get it out! The object needs to be stabilised to prevent further damage,’ barks Papa.
Slamming the book closed, I slide it behind my mahogany wardrobe and race out of my bedroom, hoisting the ruffles of my dress and running down the stairs.
The swish of my skirt is easily drowned out by the pained wails as I descend.
Slippers forgotten, I come to a halt on the last stair in my embroidered stockings.
In our hallway stand my father, my oldest brother, my youngest brother, and a moaning man slumped against another. The two strangers are dusty and the one propping up the moaner coughs with lungs that wheeze and crackle—they must be workers from the cotton mill.
From the injured man’s left eyeball, protrudes a metal shard and blood runs down his smooth face.
He lifts his arms to claw at his face.
‘Get his hands away from that eye,’ commands Papa.
My oldest brother, Ralph, helps restrain the man.
‘I have your bread, doctor.’ The baker’s boy stands in the doorway, his grey flat cap in one hand and a loaf in the other.
‘Leave it on the step,’ instructs my father before turning back to the strangers.
‘Follow me.’ He strides down our hallway to his study.
‘Flo, go back upstairs,’ chides Ralph.
Continued…