Victorian engineering prodigy Gillian Smith has found a home, a community and a vocation in Lisabet Sarai’s steam punk erotic romance The Journeyman’s Trial. Desire stimulates creativity in the Toymakers Guild. But what happens when two Guild members fall in love?

Lisabet, welcome to Romance Lives Forever. I’m Kayelle Allen, author and owner of this blog. Happy to have you here! We’re excited to find out more about your heroine, but first, tell us about The Journeyman’s Trial.

The Journeyman’s Trial by Lisabet Sarai

Steampunk erotica/erotic romance

Book heat level (based on movie ratings): X-rated

Technically brilliant and thoroughly wanton, Gillian Smith has found her vocation: designing innovative erotic devices for the Toymakers Guild. Lust is a lubricant to creativity at Randerley Hall. But what happens when two Toymakers fall in love?

The Guild’s tribe of talented, uninhibited engineers has embraced Gillian as one of their own. Edward Thorne, the perverse genius who founded the Guild, undertakes to train her in the skills she’ll need as a journeyman, from practical mind-reading to transcendental orgasms.

As Gillian labours to impress the charismatic Master, her enigmatic fellow journeyman Rafe both entices and frustrates her. Their passion seems to go beyond mere appetite, but in Randerley’s promiscuous and permissive environment, does love make any sense?

When the Toymakers receive a commission to equip London’s most exclusive brothel with the latest sexual technology, Gillian has the chance to demonstrate her formidable abilities as well as to help Rafe exorcise the demons of his past. She doesn’t realize she’ll be forced to choose between Rafe and her future in the Guild.

Know the Heroine from The Journeyman’s Trial

Here are some fun questions to help us know your heroine.

Describe the kind of clothes she prefers to wear.

Gillian Smith doesn’t spend a huge amount of mental energy on her appearance. While working in the Randerley Hall laboratory, designing and building sex toys, she usually wears an ankle-length, heavy linen lab coat which has lots of pockets and which buttons up the front. When she’s sent to London to meet with potential clients, however, she’ll don more fashionable attire, the fitted bodices and multi-layered skirts and petticoats typical of the Victorian period, often in silk or velvet. She might even wear a hat and veil.

Does she know how to fix things?

Gillian is a highly skilled engineer, the only child of two famous inventors responsible for a range of steam punk technical devices including the piezoelectric pocket watch and the personal gramophone. They educated her at home, fostering her intellectual and technical skills. Thus, she can fix almost anything, whether it’s electrical or mechanical. Her specialty, however, is mathematics and logic.

She tried to do something and it went badly. Tell us about it.

For much of The Journeyman’s Trial, Gillian is trying to create a system to automatically control mechanical devices based on stored instructions – basically, to invent the first programmable computer. She encounters many obstacles, and feels both frustrated and depressed. With a realistic appreciation of her own intelligence and skill, she is accustomed to success in technical matters. Her apparent failure to create an Analytical Engine that works according to her requirements undermines her self-confidence and actually reduces her to tears on one occasion – a most uncharacteristic reaction for her.

What is she like first thing in the morning?

Gillian’s definitely a morning person. She likes to be in the lab by 7:30 or 8:00 AM, especially when she has a deadline. When she wakes, she’s immediately alert, rather than groggy.

She also likes to eat a hearty breakfast, including at least one cup of strong tea without sugar.

How does she handle things when in a “proper” social situation?

The denizens of Randerley Hall – the members of the Toymakers Guild – are not sticklers for propriety. Indeed, one might say that they are rebels, defying the repressive morality of the Victorian era and seeking freedom from the prudish society that surrounds them. Gillian fits right in. She has little patience for social niceties and is often direct to the point of being blunt.

She does know how to behave, however, and can be polite and genteel under the right circumstance – for instance, when she is interacting with the suave, attractive Duke of Anselm.

Powdered wig or natural hair?

Wigs had mostly fallen out of fashion in the Victorian era, aside from individuals who had unnatural hair loss. Gillian has lovely, curly auburn hair which is often somewhat unkempt. She wears it pulled back when she is working, and collected into a loose knot at the top of her head on more formal occasions.

Carriage or horseback?

Rail travel is probably the most common mode of transportation used in The Journeyman’s Trial. Randerley Hall is in Devon, in the vicinity of Tavistock which was a major market town. Frequent trains connected the town to London, and the characters make use of them on a number of occasions.

The book does include several chapters in which Gillian ventures out onto the moors on horseback. She’s not an experienced horsewoman, especially at first, but her fellow journeyman Rafe encourages her and teaches her the rudiments of riding. This is fortunate, since at a later stage in the story, she’s forced to ride out alone to rescue him.

Thanks for helping us get to know your heroine!

Where to buy The Journeyman’s Trial

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MQV4Y86
Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-journeymans-trial-lisabet-sarai/1140567579?ean=2940165096259
Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-journeyman-s-trial-the-toymakers-guild-book-2
Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1118032
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59740783-the-journeyman-s-trial

Lisabet Sarai Social Media

Lisabet Sarai became addicted to words at an early age. She began reading when she was four. She wrote her first story at five years old and her first poem at seven. Since then, she has penned plays, tutorials, scholarly articles, marketing brochures, software specifications, self-help books, press releases, a five-hundred page dissertation, and lots of erotica and erotic romance – over one hundred titles, and counting, in nearly every sub-genre—paranormal, scifi, ménage, BDSM, GLBT, and more. Regardless of the genre, every one of her stories illustrates her motto: Imagination is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
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