The Pansy Paradox

A woman with nothing to hide-except the truth-meets a man with nothing to lose-except his heart. And he's just arrived in town to fire her.Meet Pansy LittleSince her mother vanished, Apprentice Field Agent Pansy Little is the sole guardian of King's End, protecting it from a supernatural force only a select few can see. The arrival of an agent from Enclave headquarters doesn't bring relief. Instead, it means Pansy's well-crafted charade is about to collapse.Meet Henry DarnellePrincipal Field Agent Henry Darnelle doesn't want to be in King's End, but he's been blackmailed into performing Pansy's field agent evaluation-with explicit instructions to fail her.Distractedly handsome and unfailingly correct, he surprises Pansy-and himself-by defying orders to fire her. Instead, his curiosity is piqued by both Pansy and King's End.Together, they investigate, unearthing intricate ties that bind their families. Together, they might even be falling in love.But someone with a decades-old obsession is watching, maneuvering behind the scenes, someone won't rest until blood is spilled.Welcome to King's End, where discord falls from the sky and an eccentric twenty-something patrols the streets with her pink polka-dotted umbrella. Where one misstep won't merely bring disaster-it might spark the end of the world.The Pansy Paradox is a slow-burn, opposites-attract, contemporary romantasy filled with adventure, humor, and, of course, sentient umbrellas. Charity Tahmaseb has slung corn on the cob for Green Giant and jumped out of airplanes (but not at the same time). She spent twelve years as a Girl Scout and six in the Army; that she wore a green uniform for both may not be a coincidence. These days, she writes fiction (long and short) and works as a technical writer for a software company in St. Paul.Her novel, The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading (written with co-author Darcy Vance), was a YALSA 2012 Popular Paperback pick in the Get Your Geek On category.Her short speculative fiction has appeared in UFO Publishing's Unidentified Funny Objects and Coffee anthologies, Deep Magic, Escape Pod, and Cicada.