Lee Kelly – författare

An archaeologist’s estranged daughters.

1907: The dawn of Egyptology is a time of imperialism and plunder, opulence and unrest, and Dr. Warren Ford, esteemed archaeologist, is the man of the hour. His daughters—intellectual Lila, on the eve of her debut as a Manhattan socialite, and nonconformist Tess, who dreams of following in his footsteps—have always lived in his shadow, and their lives couldn’t feel more different. But when a secretive organization seeks to find a lost relic legendary for its dangerous power, it isn’t Dr. Ford they turn to—it’s his two remarkable daughters.

A legendary artifact known as the Serpent’s Crown.

Rumored to reside in the mysterious Tomb of the Five Ladies, the Serpent’s Crown will only be found by solving a seemingly impossible riddle that will open the tomb—and the organization believes that one of the Ford daughters holds the key to deciphering the code. What was supposed to be an elegant debutante ball for elder sister Lila quickly turns sinister when Tess is kidnapped and put on a ship across the Atlantic. When Lila and her father realize that Tess’s life is in danger, they must act quickly to track her down and stop the Serpent’s Crown from falling into the wrong hands.

A puzzle three millennia in the making.

A race for the Crown begins, with Lila and her father in hot pursuit of the organization and Tess. With lives at stake, the fractured family must keep their wits about them, find the artifact, and escape the ruthless men who are also determined to possess the Crown and use it to their own advantage—no matter the cost.

In this women-centered nod to the beloved Indiana Jones stories, The Antiquity Affair is a high-stakes, trans-Atlantic thrill ride, with the page-turning excitement and romance of classic adventure novels and a poignant story of sisterhood at its core.

An exciting turn-of-the-century adventureStand-alone novelBook length: 100,000 wordsPerfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn, Laurie King, Clive Cussler, and Indiana JonesIncludes discussion questions for book clubs

One perfect island. Two rivals. A star-studded cast.But underneath the glitter, disaster is brewing.Summer, 1958. Vivienne Rhodes thinks she’s finally landed her break playing Helen of Troy in Apex Pictures’ big-budget epic, A Thousand Ships, an anticipated blockbuster meant to resurrect the failing studio. Naturally, she’s devastated when she arrives on the remote Italian island of Tavalli and finds herself cast as the secondary character, Cassandra—while her nemesis, the fiancé-stealing Lottie Lawrence, America’s supposed “sweetheart,” is playing the lead role instead.The tension on set, though, turns deadly when the ladies discover that members of the crew are using the production as a front for something decidedly illegal—and that they are willing to kill to keep their dealings under wraps. When the two women find themselves on the run and holding key evidence, Vivienne and Lottie frantically agree to work together to deliver the proof to Interpol, hoping to protect both their lives and their careers.Staying one step ahead of corrupt cops and looming mobsters, the archrivals flee across the seas. Their journey leads them into Monaco’s casinos, Grace Kelly’s palace, on a road trip through the Alps—even onto another film set, before a final showdown back on Tavalli, where the lives of the entire cast and crew hang in the balance. Vivienne and Lottie finally have the chance to be real heroines—to save the day, the film, maybe even each other—but only if they can first figure out how to share the spotlight.“A spry and suspenseful crime novel set just after Hollywood’s golden age” (starred Publishers Weekly review)Stand-alone novelBook length: 84,000 words“A sheer delight! This fast-paced caper is fresh, fun, and exactly the escape readers need right now.” —Marie Bostwick, New York Times bestselling author of Esme Cahill Fails SpectacularlyPerfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Clive CusslerIncludes discussion questions for book clubs

One perfect island. Two rivals. A star-studded cast.

But underneath the glitter, disaster is brewing.

Summer, 1958. Vivienne Rhodes thinks she’s finally landed her break playing Helen of Troy in Apex Pictures’ big-budget epic, A Thousand Ships, an anticipated blockbuster meant to resurrect the failing studio. Naturally, she’s devastated when she arrives on the remote Italian island of Tavalli and finds herself cast as the secondary character, Cassandra—while her nemesis, the fiancé-stealing Lottie Lawrence, America’s supposed “sweetheart,” is playing the lead role instead.

The tension on set, though, turns deadly when the ladies discover that members of the crew are using the production as a front for something decidedly illegal—and that they are willing to kill to keep their dealings under wraps. When the two women find themselves on the run and holding key evidence, Vivienne and Lottie frantically agree to work together to deliver the proof to Interpol, hoping to protect both their lives and their careers.

Staying one step ahead of corrupt cops and looming mobsters, the archrivals flee across the seas. Their journey leads them into Monaco’s casinos, Grace Kelly’s palace, on a road trip through the Alps—even onto another film set, before a final showdown back on Tavalli, where the lives of the entire cast and crew hang in the balance. Vivienne and Lottie finally have the chance to be real heroines—to save the day, the film, maybe even each other—but only if they can first figure out how to share the spotlight.

“A spry and suspenseful crime novel set just after Hollywood’s golden age” (starred Publishers Weekly review)Stand-alone novelBook length: 84,000 words“A sheer delight! This fast-paced caper is fresh, fun, and exactly the escape readers need right now.” —Marie Bostwick, New York Times bestselling author of Esme Cahill Fails SpectacularlyPerfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Clive CusslerIncludes discussion questions for book clubs

A high society fraud and a scrappy swindler team up to take down Gilded Age New York in this tale of intrigue, drama, and female friendship.The Grand Duchess Marie Charlotte Antonie of Würrtemberg--a turmoil-plagued Germanic nation with closely guarded emerald mines--has taken Gilded Age high society by storm. Little does the upper crust know that Würrtemberg's mines are a sham and its "deposed duchess" is actually a con woman named Alice, a fallen woman out for revenge against the five ruthless robber barons who destroyed her father and left her family in shambles.Alice's long investment con finally clicks into place when she meets a scrappy magician's assistant named Cora, a drifter who has lofty aspirations of her own, a malleable young lady who proves the perfect debutante pawn to lure in Alice's final, and otherwise unattainable, target.With the help of insider and society maestro Ward McAllister, among others, Alice and Cora launch into the social season of 1884, scheming their way through grand balls, private dinners, and opera nights, ensnaring Alice's targets one by one. But as they hurtle toward their ultimate swindle, a sprawling orchestrated scheme at their fabricated embassy to rob their targets blind, pressures close in from all sides. Mutiny within the ranks, hidden moles, crises of conscience . . .This sting is sure to be the event of the season. Or else ruin Alice and Cora both.

A high society fraud and a scrappy swindler team up to take down Gilded Age New York in this tale of intrigue, drama, and female friendship.The Grand Duchess Marie Charlotte Antonie of Wurrtemberg--a turmoil-plagued Germanic nation with closely guarded emerald mines--has taken Gilded Age high society by storm. Little does the upper crust know that Wurrtemberg's mines are a sham and its "e;deposed duchess"e; is actually a con woman named Alice, a fallen woman out for revenge against the five ruthless robber barons who destroyed her father and left her family in shambles.Alice's long investment con finally clicks into place when she meets a scrappy magician's assistant named Cora, a drifter who has lofty aspirations of her own, a malleable young lady who proves the perfect debutante pawn to lure in Alice's final, and otherwise unattainable, target.With the help of insider and society maestro Ward McAllister, among others, Alice and Cora launch into the social season of 1884, scheming their way through grand balls, private dinners, and opera nights, ensnaring Alice's targets one by one. But as they hurtle toward their ultimate swindle, a sprawling orchestrated scheme at their fabricated embassy to rob their targets blind, pressures close in from all sides. Mutiny within the ranks, hidden moles, crises of conscience . . .This sting is sure to be the event of the season. Or else ruin Alice and Cora both.

“Red Dawn meets Escape from New York and The Hunger Games” (Booklist) in an action-packed dystopian fantasy filled with “prose [that] is gorgeous and brilliant” and “tells a satisfyingly dark tale through alternating the two sisters’ points of view” (VOYA, starred review).It’s been nearly two decades since the Red Allies first attacked New York, and Manhattan is now a prisoner-of-war camp, ruled by Rolladin and her brutal, impulsive warlords. For Skyler Miller, Manhattan is a cage that keeps her from the world beyond the city’s borders. But for Sky’s younger sister, Phee, the POW camp is a dangerous playground of possibility, and the only home she’d ever want. When Sky and Phee discover their mom’s hidden journal from the war’s outbreak, they both realize there’s more to Manhattan—and their mother—than either of them had ever imagined. And after a group of strangers arrives at the annual POW census, the girls begin to uncover the island’s long-kept secrets. The strangers hail from England, a country supposedly destroyed by the Red Allies, and Rolladin’s lies about Manhattan’s captivity begin to unravel. Hungry for the truth, the sisters set a series of events in motion that end in the death of one of Rolladin’s guards. Now they’re outlaws, forced to join the strange Englishmen on an escape mission through Manhattan. Their flight takes them into subways haunted by cannibals, into the arms of a sadistic cult in the city’s Meatpacking District and, through the pages of their mom’s old journal, into the island’s dark and shocking past.

“Red Dawn meets Escape from New York and The Hunger Games” (Booklist) in an action-packed dystopian fantasy filled with “prose [that] is gorgeous and brilliant” and “tells a satisfyingly dark tale through alternating the two sisters’ points of view” (VOYA, starred review).It’s been nearly two decades since the Red Allies first attacked New York, and Manhattan is now a prisoner-of-war camp, ruled by Rolladin and her brutal, impulsive warlords. For Skyler Miller, Manhattan is a cage that keeps her from the world beyond the city’s borders. But for Sky’s younger sister, Phee, the POW camp is a dangerous playground of possibility, and the only home she’d ever want. When Sky and Phee discover their mom’s hidden journal from the war’s outbreak, they both realize there’s more to Manhattan—and their mother—than either of them had ever imagined. And after a group of strangers arrives at the annual POW census, the girls begin to uncover the island’s long-kept secrets. The strangers hail from England, a country supposedly destroyed by the Red Allies, and Rolladin’s lies about Manhattan’s captivity begin to unravel. Hungry for the truth, the sisters set a series of events in motion that end in the death of one of Rolladin’s guards. Now they’re outlaws, forced to join the strange Englishmen on an escape mission through Manhattan. Their flight takes them into subways haunted by cannibals, into the arms of a sadistic cult in the city’s Meatpacking District and, through the pages of their mom’s old journal, into the island’s dark and shocking past.

In Lee Kelly’s “electric” (Publishers Weekly) fantasy novel, two young sorcerers experiment with magic and mobsters in 1920s Prohibition when a new elixir is created that turns their lives upside down.Washington, DC, 1926. Sorcery opponents have succeeded in passing the 18th Amendment, but the Prohibition of magic has only invigorated the city’s underworld. Smuggling rings carry magic contraband in from the coast. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters’ crime sprees. Gangs have even established “magic havens,” secret venues where the public can lose themselves in immersive magic and consume a mind-bending, highly addictive elixir known as “the sorcerer’s shine.” Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from the backwoods of Norfolk County, accepts an offer to work for DC’s most notorious crime syndicate, The Shaw Gang, when her family’s home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, first-year Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws. When Joan meets Alex at the Shaws’ magic haven, she discovers a confidante in her fellow partner and he begins to fall under her spell. But when a new breed of the addictive sorcerer’s shine is created within the walls of the magic haven, Joan and Alex are forced to question their allegiances as they become pitted against one another in a dangerous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.