If you haven’t already done so, here’s your chance to read the first chapter of The Marvelous Mechanical Man and see if you like it. This excerpt also features the first snippet of Calico Kate and the River of Gold. That bears a bit of explanation. For those who are new to the series, Josephine Mann is a huge fan of the author Garrett Goldthwaite, whose Dime Novels she practically devours. For the first four books in the series–what I think of as the “New York arc”–each chapter starts with an excerpt from one of these books that has some relevance to the main plot. At least, that was the intent.

I’ve had a lot of readers tell me they just skip over that part, so in Book Five–which started the “Irish arc”–I stopped including them. If, however, you enjoy that part, let me know. I have been toying with the idea of fleshing them out and offering them as companion pieces. The first attempt at this was Practical Polly and the Village of Doom. I had written a dime novel for one of the books and changed my mind about what I wanted to feature, so I had this one left over.

Just a bit of fun information to make your tour stop interesting.

Calico Kate