A Pacific Northwest native, Mara Tran has been pursuing the written arts since she was little and would type on her dad’s laptop for hours on end. In her lifetime, she has been a musician, librarian, bookseller, blogger, medical office assistant - and now a fulltime housewife and author. She’s a summer girl, but has learned to appreciate what each season brings, and she’s passionate about everything Victorian. Her top hobbies are reading, baking and cooking, swing dance, junk journaling, tea and cheese sampling, and embroidery. Her favorite authors are Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen.THE WARD is Mara’s first published novel.

~ Book 1: The Ward ~

Spring 1888. . . .

TUYA PAZNIC was left by her father one dark winter night and now, seventeen years later, is plagued with night terrors from something that happened that day—something she can’t remember.

BRAMWELL DEVRASI, a recent medical graduate, is eager to follow in the footsteps of his guardian in heading medical reformation and the treatment of psychiatric patients.

GIDEON PAZNIC thought he lost his wife twenty-five years ago, in childbirth, until a mysterious note arrives one evening which drastically alters his opinion.

LUC MONTAGUE is ordered by his master to investigate a series of bizarre crimes in Venisia, whose ritualistic nature is peculiar and suspicious.

When Bramwell and Tuya go to Venisia for the Season to witness the renowned revelries of the Black Masquerade, wherein they are inadvertently drawn into Luc’s investigations, and Gideon searches for his wife—paths cross that spark memories best forgotten, dredge up terrors in the dark, and family conspiracies stretching generations are brought to light.

In the spirit of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens - family secrets, lost legacies, murder and intrigue abound in THE WARD - the first book in THE BIRTHRIGHT CHRONICLES.

“If one is shocking to one’s neighbors, then one must be doing something right.”
~ The Ward ~ Book 1 in The Birthright Chronicles

“Gentlemen who were a purposeful blank were, Luc determined, very bad for one’s health.”
~ The Ward ~ Book 1 in The Birthright Chronicles

“Keep it away from my lungs next time. I am attached to my lungs; I require my lungs. Should you threaten my lungs again with this insipid little ceremonial bauble again, I will be obliged to ask my rats to nibble away your toes—possibly an entire foot, and certainly your ears and one of your eyes.”
~ The Ward ~ Book 1 in The Birthright Chronicles

“She was all sharp angles. Sharp chin, sharp cheekbones, sharp elbows, and sharp gray eyes which swept the world around her with a silent consideration that told everyone she was Thinking Things.”
~ The Ward ~ Book 1 in The Birthright Chronicles

“The combination of pleasing looks, pleasing manner, and a disinterest in common gentlemanly pastimes resulted in the fellows of Bramwell’s university days wishing to have very little to do with him. It earned him no forgiveness that he had little interest in having anything to do with them as well.”
~ The Ward ~ Book 1 in The Birthright Chronicles

“There was something in the calm, quiet manner of Dr. Paznic which made it quite clear that he was entirely sincere. Violent threats, when shuffled out with perfect candor from a man not, by nature, prone to violence, rather terrified the gentleman.”
~ The Ward ~ Book 1 in The Birthright Chronicles