Book #1 from the series: Austen Seasons

Brighton & Betrayal

A Pride & Prejudice Regency romance retelling

About

A seaside scandal. A hidden smuggler. A Regency romance too dangerous to deny.

Brighton, 1813. Elizabeth Bennet expected seashells and sunshine, not a brooding stranger who knows every hidden cove. Fitzwilliam Darcy is rumored a reclusive gentleman, yet Elizabeth spies him guiding moonlit boats through smuggler tunnels. When Crown agents recruit her to expose a seaside smuggling ring, she must choose: betray the man she loathes, or trust him with her life and her heart. Together they navigate ballroom gossip, treacherous tides, and a tension that sparks hotter than midsummer sand—yet one false step could drown them both in scandal.

Assigned a covert mission by His Majesty’s Customs, Elizabeth poses as a curious holiday guest, cataloguing every suspicious shipment along the chalk cliffs. She doesn’t expect Mr. Darcy’s blunt warning to leave Brighton before nightfall—or the spark that flares when they are forced to share a storm-tossed cave. Darcy has spent months infiltrating the pirate syndicate that ruined his family’s good name; a single mistake will see him hanged. But Elizabeth’s sharp questions threaten to unravel his cover even faster than the Crown’s spies. When an encrypted manifest points to a traitor inside the Prince Regent’s household, the pair must forge an uneasy alliance and race the spring tide to stop a lethal shipment bound for London.

Love is the riskiest contraband of all.