2024 romantic fantasy novelette, first of a new series. Margaret
Dunhaven has married in haste to prevent her family's ruin, and is now
Lady Riven, wife of the infamous vampire lord. Well, at least he has a
library.
There isn't room to do much with the conceit here. Inevitably
these two strangers will end up falling in love. But the process by
which they do it is mostly one of working out how they have both been
deceived by people whom they ought to be able to trust, and what those
people were trying to achieve, and in turn how they can be stopped.
It turns out that there is a Significant Gem, which indeed appears to
have played an important role in the alternate history of this
Britain, being involved with the Werewolves of Normandy, the vampires
who prevented French invasion in 1216, and the walking dead on
Bosworth Field. (Honestly, I could have done with some more of that;
but novelette.)
Still, I found the people intriguing; although I read it as a
stand-alone, and it works that way, at least one more volume is
planned, and I certainly intend to read that too.