Book excerpt: On the day she and her mother escaped her cruel father, Emma Washington vowed to never fall in love. Now, Emma is a back-to-school PhD student with bigger and better things to worry about. That is, until one night, exhausted, slightly tipsy, and on her way home from a party, the glaring white light of a car comes crashing toward her, changing her life forever. Instead of waking up in a 21st-century hospital, she finds herself waking up in the backwaters of London, England, 1881... Trapped in a time where everything she once knew is considered witchcraft, Emma discovers that Victorian London is a harsh world for a woman without wealth or status. She faces yet another life-changing twist when she learns her only chance of survival depends on the very thing she has tried to avoid her whole life-marriage. As if that isn't bad enough, she must betroth herself to none other than the most powerful duke in all of England, the notorious and feared Lord William Blackwell. But...what begins as a fight for her life might just become a chance to find true love.