Steel and starlight

By Stuart Tanner

Eighteen-century Europe is a gaming-table where kings deal cards and highwaymen deal diamonds.
Jack Steel - gentleman by day, masked rogue by night - robs carriages with a laugh and a loaded pistol.
Lady Eleanor Hawthorne - astronomer, pamphleteer, widow with a past sharper than her telescope - carries star-charts in her reticule and revolution in her heart.
When their paths collide on a rain-soaked Surrey road, a wager is struck: steal her heart before sunrise and he may leave with both love and gold.
The sunrise finds them married on a scaffold, hunted across oceans, and sailing toward an eclipse that will darken London at noon.
From Thames prison-hulks to Pacific lagoons, from Versailles ballrooms to star-chart rebellions, STEEL & STARLIGHT is a rip-roaring romance that balances musket-fire with wit, moonlight with manifestos. Wellington's war-chest, Polynesian printing presses, hot-air balloon escapes and Polynesian tattoos all orbit the tiny diamond earring that becomes their private compass - and the symbol every government wants to confiscate.
This complete 20-chapter novel (≈ 60 000 words) delivers:

Slow-burn, banter-rich romance that starts with a kiss and ends with a constellation

Swashbuckling set-pieces: highway robbery, prison-breaks, ballroom sword-fights, naval chases, Pacific storms

Found-family crew of smugglers, sailors, and star-gazing rebels

A heroine who names constellations after outlaws and a hero who learns that freedom is larger than escape

A triumphant, open-sky ending that refuses the noose and rewrites the map
If you love Scarlet Pimpernel's elegance, Pirates of the Caribbean's set-pieces, and Bridgerton's banter - but want astronomy, anarchist pamphlets and a love story that crosses the equator -

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G3X1DMSM
• ISBN13: 9798275943313
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"