My Fair Frauds

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.

Author Biography

Lee Kelly is the author of City of Savages, a Publishers Weekly “Best of Spring 2015” pick and a VOYA Magazine “Perfect Ten” selection; A Criminal Magic, which was optioned and developed for a television series by Warner Bros.; The Antiquity Affair, co-written with Jennifer Thorne; and With Regrets. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Gingerbread House, Orca, and Tor.com, among other publications, and she holds her MFA degree from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

An entertainment lawyer by trade, Lee has practiced law in Los Angeles and New York. She currently lives with her husband and two children in New Jersey, where you’ll find them engaged in one adventure or another. Connect with her online at leekellyauthor.com; Facebook: lee.y.kelly; Instagram: leeykelly; X: @leeykelly.

Born in a small town in Tennessee, Jenn grew up bouncing between her parents’ homes in various other states and countries, with books as her constant companions, before returning to New York as a teen to study drama at NYU. Though acting had been her lifelong dream, she found that she was more fulfilled by writing performance vehicles for her friends than acting in them herself. After a move to Los Angeles, she detoured into writing and never looked back. Connect with her online at jenniferthorne.com; Facebook: JennMarieThorne; Instagram: jennmariethorne.