How to Marry a Marble Marquis

An incident at Lady Harthington's Ball ruins Eleanor Eastwick's Season. She is left with no suitors and no dowry, and her family's fortunes now depend on a good marriage. Her Majesty settles the matter by ordering her to attend the Monsters Ball, which is the family's last chance.

Eleanor knows she is poorly prepared to win over London's monstrous gentry. She turns for lessons in courtship to Lord Silas Stride, the Marquis of Basingstone, a notorious rake. Silas is a gargoyle: by day he is only half alive, and he becomes fully himself after dark.

Silas has sworn off marriage. He is convinced that his nocturnal nature would be too cruel to impose on a wife. Eleanor, though, is at ease with his darkness, and each lesson wears down his resolve a little more.

This is a Regency-set monster romance with a gargoyle hero, built on the courtship conventions of the period. It is a standalone entry in C.M. Nascosta's shared Monsters Ball world, first published in December 2023. The dynamic is a tutor and pupil who grow close, with the lessons as the engine of the romance.