On Tour with Prism Book Tours.
The Perilous Journey of the Much-Too-Spontaneous Girl
by Leigh Statham
YA Steampunk
ebook & print, 297 pages
September 20, 2016 by Month9Books
The Perilous Journey of the Not-So-Innocuous Girl #2
Lady Marguerite Vadnay and her trusty automaton, Outil, have settled into life in New France rather well. Marguerite is top of the class at flight school and her future as an aerpilot is nearly secure. She has everything she wants— except a commission on the pirate hunting dirigible The Renegade. Using every card in her aristocratic arsenal, Marguerite wiggles her way onto the finest warship France has to offer. But as usual, Marguerite’s plans endanger the lives of those she holds dear— only this time no one else is going to save them. As Marguerite and Outil set off on a rescue mission they may not return from, she finally realizes it’s time to reorder her cogs.
This steampunk adventure is littered with facts from The Golden Age of Piracy and follows (not too closely) some of the lives and adventures of the brave men and women who sailed the seas as privateers, pirates and soldiers.
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Excerpt
CHAPTER 1, Part 1
Lady Marguerite Vadnay strapped herself into the tiny compartment and slipped her goggles over her eyes. A glass hood lowered over the upper half while her lower body sat snug in the cockpit of the single-man aership. The wind was blowing enough to rock the small cabin back and forth as her envelope filled beside her, eventually leaving the ground completely, its seams tight with helium.
Her hair was pulled into a neat bun, and her flight suit was no longer a man’s hand-me-down. It was custom made from the finest industrial cloth she could get her hands on in Montreal, complete with lots of pockets. Lady Vadnay loved pockets. Little brass buttons stamped with her monogram ran from her chin all the way to her trousers. She had fully embraced her life as a woman of New France and soon-to-be aership pilot.
Plenty of men flew the tiny contraptions. It was the aercraft of choice in New France, perfect for charting high mountain passes and performing night raids on neighboring New England. France was far ahead of any country in the world when it came to avionics—unless, of course, you counted the pirate nations of the seas, which Marguerite did not. All of their technology was stolen, mostly from France.
It had been a long road getting to this point. Only six months earlier she was being abused by her high-priced governess, Pomphart, back in mainland France. Her father was a wealthy Lord, determined on marrying her off to anything that crawled around with a decent title and bank account, and her friends were either boring or deserting her for adulthood.
Marguerite took matters quickly into her own hands. She’d volunteered to be a Daughter of the King and sailed away without her father’s knowledge. All she wanted was to start a new life with her childhood friend Claude and have some adventures; unfortunately, the adventures were more than she’d bargained for. Friends were lost, and new ones made. She was lucky to be alive and studying at His Royal Majesty’s Flight Academy for Resilient Young Women after the harrowing trip.
“Tighten the lift lever, pull in on the altinometer. We’re going to remove the anchors now!” Her professor yelled at her over the sound of the roaring single-motor engine. It sputtered and spit steam. The solar panels had been fully charged the day before and the fuel tanks filled with fresh water that morning. There was nothing left to do but fly.
“Ready?” the professor called to Marguerite. The ground crew, consisting mostly of her classmates from the flight academy, scurried to finish their assignments.
Marguerite nodded, and the assembly went to work loosening ropes, moving sandbags, and generally getting out of the way.
Other Books in the Series
The Perilous Journey of the Not-So-Innocuous Girl
by Leigh Statham
YA Steampunk
Paperback & ebook, 297 pages
March 17th 2015 by Month9BooksThe Perilous Journey of the Not-So-Innocuous Girl #1
Lady Marguerite lives a life most 17th-century French girls can only dream of: money, designer dresses, suitors, and a secure future. Except she can’t quite commit to a life of dull luxury and she suspects she may be falling for her best friend Claude, a common smithy in the family's steam forge. When Claude leaves for New France in search of a better life, Marguerite decides to follow him and test her suspicions of love—only the trip proves to be more harrowing than she anticipated. Love, adventure, and restitution await her if she can survive the voyage.
Based on the true story of The Daughters of the King, Louis the XIV’s social program to settle the wilds of Canada with women of noble birth, Marguerite’s steampunk adventure follows in the footsteps of nearly one thousand brave women and girls who were rewarded handsomely for trekking across the pirate infested Atlantic to a strange land.
"The writing is solid and the world-building – that clever combination of historical detail and Ms. Statham’s imagination – is excellent."~ The Australia Times Books
About the Author
Leigh Statham was raised in the wilds of rural Idaho, but found her heart in New York City. She worked as a waitress, maid, artist, math teacher, nurse, web designer, art director, thirty-foot inflatable pig and mule wrangler before she settled down in the semi-quiet role of wife, mother and writer. She resides in North Carolina with her husband, four children, five chickens and two suspected serial killer cats.
Leigh is also a founder of QuantumFairyTales.com and is currently serving a life sentence there as senior editor and gnome driver. She loves all things sparkly and strange that go bump in the night.
Tour Schedule
September 11th: Launch
September 12th:
September 13th:
September 14th:
September 15th:
September 16th:
September 18th: Grand Finale
Tour Giveaway
• 1 winner will win signed copies of The Perilous Journey of the Not-So-Innocuous Girl and The Perilous Journey of the Much-Too-Spontaneous Girl plus some awesome Steampunk goggles (US only)
• Ends September 23rd
This is a beautiful cover.
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