Hello Katherine! Thank you so much for visiting Written Butterfly with me today! It’s such a pleasure to chat with you. So tell me…
Yes! Of Coppers and Cracksmen is the second in the Whitfield Files series. The series is about the Victorian streets of Islington, featuring an array of steampunk characters from technomancers to alchemists. Book two in the series is a forbidden love romance featuring a detective and a thief who’s currently being framed for murder. When she becomes the next target for the serial killer, Ellie and Bernard work together against the clock to try and stop the murderer before she ends up dead.
Q) What was the hardest (or easiest) scene to write?
The hardest scene to write was probably the fight scene at the end, which is a knife fight that I’m unfamiliar with. As for easiest, any of the banter between the two just flowed out on the page.
Q) What type of research did you do for your book?
I did a lot of the landscape and area research for book one in the series, so a lot of the continued research in this one was Victorian slang to get the dialogue right. I also dove into researching individual aspects of the book as I went through it, such as aspects about the cops and detectives of the time, how thieves operated back then, etc.
Q) Do you have a favorite book you’ve written?
I tend to have a favorite book in each series. Out of the Tribal Spirits series, Forged Futures ended up being my favorite, a combination of grief and cinnamon roll leads. In my Philadelphia Coven Chronicles series, my favorite was always Rising Autumn, featuring necromancers, cemeteries, and a whole lot of intense romance.
Q) Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
While each Whitfield Files book can work as a standalone, but each of the books features a different member of the Whitfield family, and so their stories intertwine, especially between the first and the third book.
Q) What are your upcoming projects?
Currently I’m switching gears out of steampunk and paranormal romance. I started diving into more queer contemporary romance, including a heist romance, a small-town F/F contemporary romance, and a geeky contemporary romance. I’m so excited to change directions as I’ve been reading more and more queer contemporary romance and falling in love with the genre.
When Ellie Whitfield’s accused of a crime
she didn’t commit—though she’s committed many—only one man believes her. And
he’s the unlikeliest man as well—Detective Bernard Taylor. He’s a handsome
chap, but lawmen were never her type. At least, until now…
Bernard Taylor’s hunting down the Butcher of
Broad Street, and though Ellie Whitfield’s led the coppers on a merry chase
through Islington too many times, the woman’s no cold-blooded murderer. As they
work together, he can’t help but be charmed by the vivacious Ellie, and before
long, heated glances turn into something more explosive.
However, the closer they get to solving the
murder, the deeper the serial killer draws them in—one misstep and they might
be his next victims.
Excerpt:
The blood staining Ellie Whitfield’s hands was as good a reason as any to run from the mutton shunters. Not like she needed one—in her line of work, coppers meant bad news and missed coin. Still, the crimson painting her fingertips didn’t sketch her in the best light—not while crouching beside a corpse.
The shouts rang from the opposite end of the alley, which left no time for rotting about.
Ellie vaulted down the other side—toward the consuming shadows. The coins she’d nicked jangled in her trouser pockets, enough coin to pay their rent for the next month. Nothing someone as poor as a matchstick maker could pass up. The air on this side of town grew thick, coating her skin like oil, but she gulped mouthfuls. She reached the end of the alley, which bisected another one, tall buildings looming on either side.
The clang of police bells echoed through the quiet night in Camden Town.
At least, quiet until she’d mucked around the streets to watch the gents and ladies sashay by—their steps a little lighter after she’d absconded with their niceties. She wouldn’t have gotten caught if it wasn’t for the dead woman she’d stumbled into at the end.
Her ponytail streamed behind her, a few strands sticking to her sweaty forehead. The coppers loved to parade around like they owned this city, but she bolted in the direction of her home, Islington, one of the areas they’d all but given up on. The police only served those with enough coin to flash, and she’d been scraping from the moment she sprang from her mother’s womb.
Ellie’s shoes slapped against the cobbled streets louder than she liked, but right now she needed speed more than silence. The canal burbled in the distance, and the thump-thump-thump of the cops behind her whispered that moving quick-like was more essential than ever.
The blood dried on her fingertips as she balled her hands tight and raced through yet another alley in the shadow of a barber’s and a meat pie shop. Throughout all of London, the shadows marched at night, threatening to suffocate the weak, the foolish or the plain unlucky. She’d been all three in the past, yet had scraped through with her life.
Helps to have a technomancer for a sister.
The alleyway came to an end and she burst out onto the road. Once she stepped into view, a shout came from a few shops down, and the intense beams flashed their way from the hangman’s orbs—mechanisms that cast sunlight even in the dead of night. Blokes like them get equipped with all the knickknacks.
The three coppers had spotted her, and unless she found a hideaway to clean up in, the blood mucking up her blouse made her look as guilty as the governor. Ellie let out a whoop and threw a hand in the air as she surged forward, continuing the chase. If they wanted to target her, she’d run them ragged before making her escape.
At least, if lady luck didn’t abandon her tonight.
Clicks echoed from behind her, and a glance back rewarded her with the glow of aether in the modded pistols the coppers aimed her way. She couldn’t outrun a bullet.
To the right of her, the buildings stretched out, narrow alleys aplenty.
To the left of her, a few storefronts interspersed along the canal.
Luck never favored cowards.
Buy
links:
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/of-coppers-and-cracksmen-katherine-mcintyre/1136696077?ean=9781839433917
Totally Bound: https://www.totallybound.com/book/of-coppers-and-cracksmen
About Katherine McIntyre
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