Introducing...The Lost Sisterhood by Anne Fortier

Normally introducing books through the first chapter or so, this week I'm including the entire Prologue as an introduction to this book...

The young men completed their training row in record time.

It was one of those rare bright mornings in Oxford, when the mists lifted off the river right before the bow, as if nature had waited for this moment, this crew, to finally unveil herself.

Haz felt invincible when he and his mates walked back to college together, crossing the Christ Church Meadow in the rising sun. But his elation was cut short by the college porter, who summoned him to the lodge with a brusque wave as soon as the young men entered the quad. "This came for you, sir." The porter pointed an ink-stained thumb at the object sitting on the mail counter. "Not ten minutes ago. I was just about to call the dean--"

"What is it?" asked Haz, stretching to see. "And where--?" But his voice broke off as soon as he discovered the contents of the canvas hamper, for nestled on a cushion and covered with a blanket lay a sleeping baby.

Haz was unable to come up with any appropriate English words to express the sudden chaos in his brain. He had seen infants before, certainly, but had never expected to find one so small in the dank lodge, surrounded by mail bags and forgotten umbrellas.

"Indeed, sir." The porter drew up his woolly eyebrows in awkward sympathy. "But perhaps this letter"-- he handed the young man an envelope that was attached to the hamper by a string--"will provide an explanation."

-- The Lost Sisterhood by Anne Fortier