A Thread for the Spider

Name: A Thread for the Spider
Author: Daph Percy

A Landlady's Historical Romantic Suspense of a Stolen Election

She keeps the ward's debts in chalk. He won't buy a single pint.

Jessamy Lusk keeps the Anchor and Cable on Rope Walk and every man's debt on the slate behind her counter, in her own chalk marks. On the morning the polling notice goes up on her door, a rope-maker who has owed her all summer pays in new gold, wrapped in a ruled slip she has seen before.

Laurence Dacre is the reformer standing for the river ward, and his first speech named her house as a treating house. He knows the Act of '54 to the clause and will not buy a single pint. Now his promised voters are telling him they cannot vote for him, because somebody has their page.

Somebody holds the lost black book of the Underwriter's House, and he is calling the ward in one slip at a time. With eight weeks to an open poll, a landlady who gives no man's name to any court and the reformer who called her house rotten must make their terms out loud and read the ward together, door by door.

She gives no man's name to any court. He will not buy a single vote. The poll is eight weeks off, and it is open.

Coin that new doesn't come out of a rope-maker's wages. Wages come in silver, and silver comes worn. Jessamy

What you're getting

A heroine with a house.She keeps the Anchor and Cable and every debt in chalk
A hero with a statute.A reformer who will not buy a single pint
Terms before a touch.Made out loud and kept to the letter, hers first
A ward that has to choose.Out loud, one man at a time, at an open poll
An ending you can trust.Complete standalone. No cliffhanger. Guaranteed HEA.

Read this if you love

A heroine who keeps a public house
A reformer hero who insulted her house
Enemies to allies to lovers
A landlady and a barrister
A stolen election
A black book of debts
Terms made out loud before a kiss
A slow burn where she sets the terms
Dual first-person POV
Guaranteed HEA

Content and heat. Dark historical romantic suspense for readers 18+. Explicit, consensual, open-door scenes, on her terms. Blackmail and intimidation of voters through bought debts, financial ruin and the threat of eviction, two men beaten in the street, arson of an occupied public house, a con man's manipulation of the heroine in the past, a child's illness, drinking and drunkenness on the page, and betrayal by someone trusted. A complete standalone with a happily-ever-after. The full content note is in the front matter of the book.