About Mrs. Quarterhorse at the Masked Ball by S. C. Marchere
Mrs. Quarterhorse’s grand ballroom cellar is revitalised after a century of neglect to host what is expected to be the masked ball to end all masked balls—because our card-reading protagonist’s cards have shown (with a demonic flourish) that the asteroid expected to drop harmlessly into the Pacific on Christmas morning will, in fact, strike land near enough to obliterate everyone dancing blissfully unaware under our hostess’ meticulously decorated and snow-buried roof!
Impending doom notwithstanding, the first few chapters could fairly be called cozy fiction, particularly once our protagonists are snowed in together. The coziness admittedly recedes as the asteroid nears, but the turmoil of that potentially world-shaking space-boulder is preceded by a moment of truly transcendent coziness! (Trigger warning for lovers of the letter Z: the author spells cozy with an S. And while cozy and cosy are equally acceptable spellings, Z, being a sharp letter, is more appropriate for jarring words like zip and pizzazz, whereas S is soft, supple, and simply more suitable for spelling cosy.)
(Mrs. Quarterhorse at the Masked Ball is the second book in the Mrs. Quarterhorse series, and will be on sale for $1.99 from February 18-24, 2026.)
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Author Bio:
S. C. Marchere is a Nova Scotia illustrator and designer who works in the chilly parlour of a former bordello he’s convinced is haunted (by mice in the walls, crows in the attic, and at least one actual ghost.) Marchere shifted to writing fiction in 2019, beginning with a series of books about an imperious lady called Mrs. Quarterhorse. The first two books were finally published last month, and the third, fourth, and fifth are expected later in 2026 after each has received its finishing touches. In between the Quarterhorse books, Marchere also writes short thematically linked stories—love stories and allegories, mostly—intended to be gathered into volumes.
(The S of S. C. Marchere is the mere scribble that remains of his signature after years of excessive signing. And being no less worn down himself, that scribbled S describes him better than his full Christian name.)