Hi, and thanks to Love Bytes for having me!

My new book, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal, comes out today, with stunning cover by Kanaxa, and I have an extract for you here, as well as a Rafflecopter giveaway of three copies, running across the blog tour.

London, 1894. A young duke’s house is haunted, and all London’s ghost-hunters have been summoned to help. Journalist Robert Caldwell has sneaked inside to get the story. He’s also hoping to find his occasional lover, ghost-hunter Simon Feximal, even though he suspects Simon won’t be too pleased to see him…

 ***

 The halls were silent and empty. I could hear the sounds of speech from ahead, and I quickened my pace as my sharp ears caught a particularly low and resonant tone.

Only one man of my acquaintance had a voice that deep.

I could have hurried forward then, but I was caught by uncertainty. No gentleman would invade the privacy of another’s home thus; but I was a journalist, not a gentleman, and I had a story to pursue. Simon would understand that, would he not?

Or perhaps he would not. I had thrilled at the thought of his disapproval earlier, but it seemed rather more probable and more menacing now. If he was truly angered, or disgusted, so that he did not want to see me again…

Well, that would be as it might. Had I not resolved already to let the cards fall as Fate decreed? Journalism was my ambition, nothing more, and I had a career to build.

With that resolved, I crept forward along the bright hallway to a great panelled door, and paused a moment to listen.

The voice inside was unmistakeably Simon’s. It was hard to hear through the thick wood, but he sounded frustrated and even a little worried.

“I can’t,” he insisted. “There’s nothing. It makes no sense.”

A woman’s voice came back, somewhat testily. I could not make out the words. Simon responded, a little quieter, so that the door muffled his words altogether. I heard “stubborn” and no more.

A hand touched my shoulder.

 ***

Click here to enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win one of three copies!

__________________________________

KJ Charles is a Rainbow Award-winning romance writer and freelance editor. She blogs about writing and publishing, spends too much time on Twitter, and has a Facebook group for book chat and sneak peeks. The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal, a Victorian occult m/m romance, is out now.

A story too secret, too terrifying—and too shockingly intimate—for Victorian eyes.

A note to the Editor

Dear Henry,

I have been Simon Feximal’s companion, assistant and chronicler for twenty years now, and during that time my Casebooks of Feximal the Ghost-Hunter have spread the reputation of this most accomplished of ghost-hunters far and wide.

You have asked me often for the tale of our first meeting, and how my association with Feximal came about. I have always declined, because it is a story too private to be truthfully recounted, and a memory too precious to be falsified. But none knows better than I that stories must be told.

So here is it, Henry, a full and accurate account of how I met Simon Feximal, which I shall leave with my solicitor to pass to you after my death.

I dare say it may not be quite what you expect.

Robert Caldwell
September 1914

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

ARe

Goodreads