"A charming boyfriend. A shapeshifting secret. And immigration inspectors who are about to ruin everything.

Ondine de Groot has survived magical curses, royal intrigue, and the chaos of running a family pub — so a busy December should be the least of her worries. Her sister's wedding is two days away, her name day has finally arrived, and the boy she loves is actually human most of the time now. Life, for once, feels almost normal.



Then the immigration inspectors arrive at The Duke and Ferret, badges raised and questions sharp, and Ondine watches in horror as her beloved Hamish — Scottish, charming, and entirely without work papers — vanishes from their grasp the only way he knows how. Suddenly the impossible tangle of magic and mundane reality she's been ignoring crashes down around her: no identity documents, a birth certificate that would raise every eyebrow in Brugel, and a government crackdown that won't stop at one warning. Keeping Hamish safe means navigating royal favours, bureaucratic nightmares, and a letter to a duchess that could either save him or send him away for good.



Can Ondine protect the boy who stole her heart one ferret-shaped crisis at a time — before the law tears apart everything they've fought so hard to build?"



Ebony McKenna is the Australian author of the ONDINE series, about a teen who comes home from psychic summercamp with a pet ferret who talks with a Scottish accent. She also writes historical and mostly Regency-era romance as Ebony Oaten. These have a sweet tone but the main characters are adults.