Andrea Pickens

aka
Andrea DaRif


Andrea Pickens is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in art and intellectual history. She has a master's degree in graphic design from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, and is currently the creative director for two sporting magazines. A lifelong fan of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, and the Brontes, she resides with her husband in Connecticut, where she's working on getting her golf handicap down to a respectable number.

The Spy Wore Silk

(The first book in the Merlin?s Maidens series)



They were once orphans from London's roughest slums. Now they are students of Mrs. Merlin's Academy for Select Young Ladies, learning the art of spying and seduction. Bold, beautiful, and oh-so-dangerous, they are England's ultimate secret weapons. The most skilled of Merlin's Maidens, Siena must unmask a traitor lurking among an exclusive club of book collectors. Armed with only her wits, her blades, and her sultry body, she joins the gentlemen at a country house party. But her prime suspect, disgraced ex-army officer Lord Kirtland proves as enigmatic as he is suspicious-and sinfully sensuous. Kirtland's instincts tell him the enticing "Black Dove" is hiding more than a luscious body beneath her fancy silks. Yet as he starts to plumb her secrets, a cunning adversary lays plans to destroy them both. To live, Siena must end her tantalizing dance of deception and desire-and decide whether to trust her head or her heart.

Seduced by a Spy

(The second book in the Merlin?s Maidens series)



England is being ruled by George III "the Mad King", and in London, at Mrs. Merlin's Academy for Select Young Ladies, one of Mrs. Merlin's beautiful young female operatives is being assigned a dangerous mission. Young Shannon, who had appeared at the end of The Spy Wore Silk to help her fellow-operative Siena achieve her mission, is now embarking on this first mission of her very own. England and Russia are in a fragile alliance, and France is trying to disrupt that alliance. France has sent its own lethal operative--an assassin named D'Etienne who already has murdered a Prussian envoy in Warsaw, and most recently has killed Russia's head of intelligence in Brussels. Now D'Etienne is in Ireland secretly teaching a band of Irish nationals how they could stage a revolt against England; and from there D'Etienne is scheduled to find and murder the Scottish ballistics expert Angus McAllister, whose death would be a terrible loss to Britain's army.

Shannon's assignment: to find and kill D'Etienne as soon as possible.

The Scarlet Spy

(The third book in the Merlin?s Maidens series)


They were once orphans from London's roughest slums. Now they are stuidents of Mrs. Merlin's Academy for Select Young Ladies, learning the techniques of spying and seduction. Bold, beautiful, and oh-so-dangerous, they are England's ultimate secret weapons...

The most ladylike of "Merlin's Maidens," Sofia possesses a natural grace and grandeur to go along with her deadly arsenal of martial skills--which makes her the perfect choice for a dangerous assignment to investigate rumors of government corruption. She must spin through the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair and the sinister back alleys of the city in search of the truth. One misstep on her part could prove fatal as she works to unravel the tangled web of deceit...but keeping the sinfully sexy Deverill Osborne at arm's length is a real test of her mettle. Handsome, witty and charming, Osborne is the darling of the ton. So when he is asked by the Marquess of Lynsley to introduce a lovely young Italian contessa into Society, he is only too happy to oblige...however he soon has suspicions about the contessa. W hen he catches her stealing valuables from a gentleman's study, should he believe the worst? Or should he trust the tantalizing murmur of her words...and the sultry, sensuous whispers of her body. To unmask the conspirators, Sofia and Osborne will overcome hidden dangers, including their own growing passion...which may be the most dangerous force of all.