Book 12 in the Magnificent Devices steampunk series!
If a wedding won't stop a war, what will?
Gloria Meriwether-Astor's belief in doing the right thing has carried her across the world and through dangers that would have felled a lesser woman. She believed that if she married the dashing Captain Fremont, she could approach the Viceroy of the Royal Kingdom of Spain and the Californias with impunity. She could convince the prince to stop the war their fathers began, and then she could return to Philadelphia with her husband, her conscience clear at last.
Sadly, belief and reality are two different things. The prince agrees to her proposal on one condition--that she annul her marriage and become his wife instead! Every woman has a threshold she will not cross. Gloria has come to love her riverboat captain, and the price of peace is simply too high. But when the evil stalking the pleasant gardens of San Luis Obispo de Tolosa claims its victim, the time for belief is over and the time to act--daringly, outrageously--is at hand. Do the witches hold the key to a way out of this trap?
All Gloria has to do is take up the crown of roses and play for the highest stakes.
All she has to do is become the iron dragon, and start a war of her own.

Shelley Adina is the author of nearly 60 novels published by Harlequin, Warner, Hachette, and Moonshell Books, Inc., her own independent press. She writes steampunk adventure and mystery as Shelley Adina; and as Adina Senft, is the USA Today bestselling author of Amish women's fiction. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in the UK. She appeared in the 2016 documentary film Love Between the Covers, is a popular speaker and convention panelist, and has been a guest on many podcasts, including Worldshapers and Realm of Books. When she's not writing, Shelley is usually quilting, sewing historical costumes, or enjoying the garden with her flock of rescued chickens.