heart as true as my intentions are honorable.
I cherish the hope that some day, you will accept them both.
I remain yours always,
Andrew
THE END
A note from Shelley
Dear reader,
I hope you have enjoyed reading Claire’s adventures in the Magnificent Devices world as much as I have enjoyed writing them. It has been your support and enthusiasm that has been like the steam in Athena’s boiler, keeping the entire enterprise afloat and ready for the next adventure.
And what might that next adventurend,du fo be? Well, there are a number of ways we can go, but I really feel that Maggie and Lizzie need their own book—or maybe books, plural! So, sometime in the fall, we’ll defy the space/time continuum to move five years into the future, when the Mopsies are sixteen and on the verge of coming out as young ladies …
… except that it’s terribly difficult to be a proper young lady when—besides literature, elocution, and mathematics—your only real skills are pickpocketing, scouting, and making bombs …
Did you enjoy this book? If so, you might leave a review on amazon.com to tell others about it!
Haven’t read the first three books?
Download Lady of Devices, Her Own Devices, and Magnificent Devices at Amazon.com.
Want to read another of Shelley’s novels while you’re waiting for the next Magnificent Devices book? Try Immortal Faith, a vampire novel that’s … a little different. Excerpt below.
Immortal Faith
A young adult novel of vampires and unholy love
By Shelley Adina
Copyright 2011 Shelley Adina Bates. All rights reserved.
Summary
In the small, Old Order Mennonite community of Mitternacht, Iowa, the people pray that God will deliver them from evil.
They should have been more specific.
Sophia Brucker is on the threshold of womanhood, standing in the door between her religion’s way of life and the possibilities of the world outside. She is also torn between two young men: David Fischer, whom she has known since childhomt siod, and Gabriel Langford, the new arrival. In a community that only grows when people are born into it, a convert—young, single, and male—is the most exciting thing that has happened in years.
When Sophia’s uncle is found dead in the barn with his throat slashed and bitten, the community grieves—except Sophia, who has been abused by him for years. And when the local mean girl is killed the same way, Sophia hardly dares to voice what she suspects: that only the worst among them are being weeded out. Under the elders’ approving eyes, it seems Gabriel is dedicated to worshipping God. But his methods may not stand up to too close a scrutiny . . . and Sophia is getting very close indeed . . .
Immortal Faith
By Shelley Adina
Chapter 1
The baby chick, hatched just yesterday and half the size of my palm, peeped as I stroked its downy yellow back with one finger. The two halves of its tiny beak crossed at the tips, which was why it had been peeping. It couldn’t pick up the feed and it was hungry.
Mamm would be out any moment, but I couldn’t help myself—I had to do something for it, even if all I had to offer was the warmth of my hands. I knew it had to be culled; if it managed to grow up and have chicks of its own, it would pass on the defect. On an Old Order Mennonite farm, even a tiny scrap of life such as this still had to do its best and pull its weight, and my mother had no tolerance for things that didn’t pull their weight.
Unless we were speaking of my youngest brother, Jonah.
Sometimes you didn’t know until a creature was half grown that it would need to be culled. When one of the young roosters decided it was going to challenge Dat for the rule of the farmyard, and attacked his leg in a fury of male aggression, Dat simply pulled it off his boot and ended that discussion with a quick twist. “I’ll not have that bird passing on his bad seed,” was all he’d said, and we had chicken and dumplings for dinner that night.
Jonah and Caleb laughed and called me softheaded as well as softhearted because I couldn’t bring myself to do some of the things that were necessary on a working farm. And while I knew God had a purpose for every animal and human here—even Jonah—and we all had to fill our places . . . I gazed down at the defenseless fluffball in my hand. We were taught to strive after perfection, but couldn’t there be a