Dearest Gentle Reader,

It appears a rather inconvenient curse took hold of our galley.

A corrupted file crept into circulation and, like any self-respecting hex, made the manuscript exceedingly difficult to decipher in places. In doing so, it cast the story in a far gloomier, more dystopian light than intended, obscuring the more enchanted, atmospheric world we were hoping to share.

The good news is that the spell has now been lifted. We’ve corrected the file and restored the manuscript to its proper form, so the narrative and worldbuilding should now read clearly—and much closer to the vision we set out to create.

Thank you, as ever, for your patience while we untangled the magic. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if anything else appears amiss.

Warmly,

Empress Editions

✨ What if menopause made you MAGICAL… instead of miserable? ✨

Finally... The Harry Potter for midlife women, we've ALL been waiting for!

Magic doesn’t expire at forty.

London, rewritten by shadow and spell, hides a secret magical intelligence service: The Department of Dark Errands. Its operatives don’t just hunt traitors—they track the things that slip between worlds.

Once the Department’s brightest commander, Nyra Vex now lives quietly at forty-five, running an apothecary along the canals of Little Venice. Her past is buried, her magic sealed, and the life she lost carefully forgotten.

Until a shadowbeast tears through her wards and whispers her name.

Dragged back into the Department’s grip, Nyra is reinstated, rearmed—and partnered with the one man she swore she’d never see again.

Beck Morran.

Her lover. Her betrayal.

Dead ten years.

Now alive—reanimated, cursed, and bound to the Patron’s coin.

As Nyra and Beck navigate a labyrinth of assassins, forbidden magic, and conspiracies older than Boudicca, the tether between them ignites again—part weapon, part desire, part doom. Every mission drags them deeper into the Department’s shadowed underworld of archives, sigils, and living magic, where loyalty fractures and survival is never guaranteed.

But Nyra carries a secret of her own.

She is shadowmarked.

And the power inside her may be the only thing that can cut Beck free—or burn the world down trying.

Perfect for fans of Kirsten Miller, Deborah Harkness, and Alice Hoffman, Shadowmarked launches The Department of Dark Errands trilogy—a darkly seductive blend of espionage, witchcraft, and midlife romantasy, where dangerous men wear three-piece suits, and the most powerful woman in the room is an apothecary who refuses to disappear.

Because some magic waits a lifetime to awaken.