Philadelphia, 1778. The British are watching, the French have arrived, and freedom is still a rumor. Claire Valois - widowed, fluent, almost invisible - steps ashore with a sewing basket and a deadlier cargo: messages written in lemon ink, meant for General Washington's spies and Rochambeau's officers. Her nerve and quiet brilliance pull her through candlelit taverns, Loyalist parlors, and river crossings where one wrong glance can end a war - or a life.
Shadowing her is Captain Edward Ashford, a British dragoon who prides himself on restraint and never misses a seam. Between them stands Colonel Nathaniel Hale, a Continental officer who practices survival the way other men practice speeches - by being late on purpose.
As the war's center of gravity tilts south - from New York's occupied streets to Virginia's muddy roads and the siege lines at Yorktown - Claire's coded threads must hold. One intercepted note, one failed page-count, and the Franco-American gamble collapses.
The Code in Lemon Ink is a gritty, atmospheric espionage tale about women's unseen labor, the lies we tell for the truths we keep, and the quiet hands that helped set a crown down on a table. For readers who love tense spycraft, human stakes, and history that breathes.
