Conversation Pieces

Vol. 81 — The Adventure of the Golden Woman: A Novella

by Cynthia Ward

$12 $10.00 (paperback)
$5.95 (e-book)	EPUB	MOBI

Read a sample from the book.

The Adventure of the Golden Woman is the final volume in Cynthia Ward’s the Bloody-Thirsty Agent series.

Lesbian vampire spies at the cabaret!  It's 1931, and conquest of the earth isn't enough for the British Empire.  But the demi-mondaine of occupied Berlin harbors a resistance movement, and the double agents Lucy Harker—Dracula's daughter—and her lover, the vampire Carmilla, steal England's spaceship plans.  Then the handoff to American agent Adolph Hitler is foiled by an impossibly advanced mechanical woman, and the lovers are imprisoned on a lunar spaceship scheduled for imminent launch. Now Lucy and Carmilla's only hope of saving the solar system is to overcome the ship's robot crew and outthink England's greatest espionage agent: Sherlock Holmes.

Praise for the Bloodthirsty Agent Series

"Cynthia Ward’s Lucy Harker novellas give the modern reader an updated frolic through avant-garde genre fiction, a frolic frosted with a myriad of clever fandom-esque references sure to delight adventurous readers."
 —Michelle Ristuccia, Tangent Online (February 14, 2020)

“[G]rand and smashing recursive steampunk…a splendid romp indeed.”
 —Paul Di Filippo, Asimov’s

Reviews

The wildly fun, fast-paced finale to Ward’s Blood-Thirsty Agent series...[is] an exhilarating example of alternate history, weaving classic characters into a narrative that’s as bombastically entertaining as it is thoughtful....  (Read the whole review)
  —Publishers Weekly (starred review), July 2021

THE ADVENTURES OF THE GOLDEN WOMAN is the fourth in Cynthia Ward’s ‘vampire hunter falls for a vampire and they have to constantly battle Martian technology and sometimes also Tarzan’ series. Will there be dinosaurs? Yes. Aliens? Probably. Weird beings at the center of the Earth, the Titanic, and Sherlock Holmes? Yup. This book, as with the series, is a consistent delight. I love the well-researched history that is then twisted and deformed into comedic genius. I love the mash up of pop culture and lesbian vampires. I love that Sherlock Holmes is the butt of 50% of the jokes. I love that the world is so weird that literally no one bats an eye at the half-vampire daughter of Dracula is also bisexual and has a lady lover who is a vampire.  (Read the whole review)
  —J.S. Fields, July, 2022

This one goes full-on steampunk with spaceships and aircraft carriers made from airships, and is actually the fastest-paced of the lot. It brings the saga to a satisfying close and makes the political statements the saga has been leading up to without being overly didactic about it–which has always been one of this series’ strengths.

It’s an interesting call to reflection in which the historically “good” guys are shown to be morally ambiguous at best and actually bad at worst. But in the final action sequence, Ward resists the temptation to kill off a few bad actors–even though there is plenty of opportunity to do so. The result is a mature ending which seems to have been written for thinking adults.  (Read the whole review)
  —Classically Educated, June, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-61976-216-9 (13 digit)
Publication Date: Oct 2021
paperback 104 pages