Briar, Briar, Briar… What can I say about Briar? There’s a lot to her, certainly more than most people would guess. Isabella Castel thinks she’s a prude. Isabella’s best friend thinks Briar needs to be rescued from her hum-drum existence. They both know her as Brionie Riley, the somewhat odd employee of the Earl of Hardwicke. What they don’t know is that the very proper Miss Riley is actually a half-demon, and her mother is a succubus.

One of the things I love about Briar is how divided a person she is. Half of her nature is chaotic and all about sensuality and hedonism. She was raised in that environment, with her mother’s people on the infernal plane. The infernal plane is no place to raise a child who might look a lot like the other succubi, but has more in common with her human ancestors when it comes to temperament. She left home for the mortal plane and has been doing her best to quash the demon side of her personality. She embraces order and discipline in direct contravention to the situation in which she was raised. She works hard to eradicate the lack of impulse control her mother’s genes leave in her, and is mostly successful. And if she appears closed off and cold, well it’s only because she is terrified that if she lets go, she will revert to the behavior of her demonic ancestors.

In this world, succubi and incubi are empaths, capable of reading the emotions of others with the slightest touch. Briar shares that ability, but someone who has problems controlling her own emotions has little use for experiencing the emotions of others. Add to that her odd ability to read objects in much the same way, is it any wonder that Briar holds herself apart from most others? The ability to divine information from objects comes in handy for her chosen profession. As an archivist, she can tell which of the materials she handles are related to others. Occasionally, she can even experience events where those items were present. That particular feat can be quite disorienting since things don’t experience the world in the same way as humans, but over the decades she’s become quite adept at interpreting those experiences into something that makes sense to her. It’s an unknown trait among succubi and one her mother would love to breed into their lineage. Briar has other ideas and avoids her family as much as she can, which isn’t too difficult when she’s on the human realm.

Finally, Briar is an accomplished used of demonic magic in the eyes of many humans. She dismisses that particular feat, as demonic magic to her is simply a matter of linguistics and semantics. She grew up speaking and reading the demonic tongue, the same language that twists demonic magic into useful shapes on the mortal realm. As far as she’s considered, she’s simply literate. Her disdain doesn’t stop her from using magic when the situation calls for it, however.

That’s Briar, a bundle of contradictions trying to make her way in the human world and looking for ways she might be happy. She might have grey skin and red eyes, but she’s as human as anybody else.

Demon in the Machine, out June 15, 2018

At the height of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, steam power and magic join forces to create wonders the world has never seen. But those wonders have a dark side—one that will soon force a reckoning few could have anticipated.

Half-demon Briar is content with her structured life as an archivist, a far cry from the chaos of her background and upbringing. Briar’s simple and predictable existence is rocked when she discovers something sinister powers one of the grand, new inventions of her era.

Isabella Castel, the only daughter of Viscount Sherard, is far from the brainless socialite she pretends to be. Isabella is everything Briar is not: passionate, creative and impulsive, but with secrets to rival even Briar’s own. Two more unlikely partners should not exist, yet if the women cannot find a way to work together, they will lose far more than their reputations.

Can a half-demon and a debutante work past their secrets before all hell breaks loose?