, I am so excited to share with you....

I have a four-book deal with Dragonblade! This series will be coming out next year, starting July 2026 with a new book launching every 3 months through spring 2027. Wheeee!!!!!!!

So.... what are they about?

Here's the pitch my agent wrote for The Bonnet Brigade:

In late Regency England, a spirited Irish woman, Celia, challenges the financial confines of women through a cunning plan to subvert the conventions of the day. Huddled over tea and iced biscuits to review their limited options, Celia, her cousins, and friends, form The Bonnet Brigade, appoint a Madam General, and strategize to escape the net of the London marriage mart – before they are ensnared forever, financial ruin descends, or a dastardly suitor makes his next move.

Now, choose your own adventure...

When people hear that I write Regency romance, they say one of two things. Which are you?

"Oh, I love Regencies! I've read them...forever!" If this is you, go to the blue paragraph.

"Regency.... um, romance? Um, I'm sure that's very nice. For you." My response is in the brown paragraph.

Then we'll all meet up in at the happy red paragraph, complete with puppies.

I love Regency romance!

Me too!

What I love about Regency romance is how it combines historical reality with the intimacy of human relationships, and that's what I'm looking forward to bringing to you. I feel like when the setting is out of our own world, it gives our imaginations the freedom to hear and feel the story. My stories are about love, family, and finding who we really are... and this series will have fancy balls, country manors, and stealthy spies as the icing on top!

Um... Regency... romance...?

Not every book is for every reader and that's fine—but I'll also say, this is not your mother's romance. Historical romance has come a long way in the last ten years or so, and while I have it on good authority that

"this isn't what I thought romance would be at all! This is good!"

I will also add that there's a lot of depth in romance these days. Also, it much more accurately represents the real people living in cosmopolitan London, and my books (like many) have primary characters of different races, body types, and cultures.

Basically..... I have no bodice ripping. No "body betrayed me" wild s*x. No helpless heroines. Just....

Like I always write, these new books will be...

Ordinary people you love to root for, doing their best. More ballrooms, fewer Fae. A new cast of earnest, foolish, wounded, hopeful, ironic characters. Like always, I'm writing—

Love.

Adventure.

Family.

And endings that are more than a sugar rush.

More details coming!

But I wanted you to be the first to hear! I'm so excited to be partnering with Dragonblade, who are the absolute experts in historical romance, to bring this series to readers. I look forward to sharing more about the process.

Meanwhile, I still have several Castle in Kilkenny books in the works. Maura's family is coming back in Oona and the Swan, and stories in two upcoming anthologies are going to return to the mythology of Saba and Finn McCool. I will balance my release schedule to make sure I can do justice to both series, because I love sharing this journey with you!

Catch up on the Castle in Kilkenny: Fairy Tales

But do you know what makes that hard?

Because I've got a puppy on my computer, and he has a dismembered fox arm, and I need to throw it. No, I really need to throw it. Right now. More. Again please.

My apologies, it is very difficult to get a good-quality picture when your dog will not stop throwing dismembered fox arms at you. These have a lot of my hand in them, because if I don't take it, then Inish climbs on top of me (and my computer) in order to thwack me more effectively, and then I couldn't get a picture at all.

Speaking of which.... I'm off to write! Thanks for celebrating with me!

Yours in thrills, bonnets, and ballgowns,

Christy (and the Shelties)

(The ballgown is imaginary. This is a lake.)