Friday Memes: Claws and Contrivances by Stephanie Burgis

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

Miss Rose Tregarth had never in her life been accused of lacking in confidence or a fiery sense of purpose. Even her late mother, who had organized her father's parish with unstoppable determination, had sighed over Rose's more grandiose and implausible plans...

Friday 56:

"Fiancé?" Serena's eyes widened.

"Fiancé?" Georgie grinned. "I say, coz..."

Their mother spoke over them both, her voice suddenly high-pitched with tension. "What -- Rose, dear, I must -- what --?"

Before Aunt Parry could finish forming her question, the door slammed open with a crash.

This week I am spotlighting Claws and Contrivances by Stephanie Burgis. This is the second in her Regency Dragons series. Here is the description from Amazon:

Passionate, idealistic Rose Tregarth may have been invited into her uncle's remote home in the heart of Wales as an act of kindness to a poor relation, but it doesn't take her long to realize that her newly-met family members are eccentric, creative, deeply lovable - and in need of all the help they can get. If the crumbling medieval walls of Gogodd Abbey aren't to collapse around their heads at any moment, someone will have to step up and take charge of the situation. Fortunately for all of them, Rose has never lacked in determination.

Add in more and more mysteriously appearing little dragons and a threatening new neighbor who could easily star as the villain in one of her aunt’s fabulous Gothic novels, and Rose is soon up to her ears in plots and schemes to save all the people and beasts she’s come to love…with the help of a sweet, baffled dragon scholar whom Rose has swept into a fake betrothal - for purely practical purposes, of course.

With her fierce, loyal heart, Rose is more than ready to take care of everyone around her, dragons and humans alike. However, it may take an act of true magic to clear her eyes to the future - and the gentleman - she desires for herself.

Claws and Contrivances is the second book in a series of standalone fantasy rom-coms that can be read in any order.