PRUDENCE MARSH IS NOT A NOBODY ANYMORE by Emily Krempholtz
Ace Trade Original | On Sale November 10, 2026

Excerpt

Every crowd had a rhythm if you knew how to listen, and this one wanted to dance. Feet pounded on the floorboards, drinks sloshed over the edges of cups, and laughter harmonized the bawdy lyrics Pru belted from the center of the room.

The Inevitable Goat looked exactly like you’d expect a backwoods mountain tavern in a backwoods mountain town to look. It was all whitewashed stone walls and thick wooden beams, a fire crackling merrily in the stone hearth, rough floor strewn with straw to mop up beer spills. On top of a mantel, a taxidermy mountain goat stood watch over the crowd, wearing a sunflower yellow hat atop its shaggy white head. From outside, the glow of the windows and the pounding of feet echoed through the still night, bringing in stragglers to join Pru’s audience.

“Come on, you lot!” she hollered. “It’s your turn!”

As the drunken taverngoers picked up the slack, singing the chorus she’d been teaching them, Pru lifted her violin and drew the bow across the strings. There were some strong voices in the crowd. Pru found the source of a clear baritone in the back of the room, a man with fair skin and shoulder-length light brown hair tied half up into a messy knot. She met his gaze with a smile, and his hazel eyes sparkled with mirth.

She winked at the man and kicked up her heels, her skirts billowing to reveal bright pinks and oranges and yellows through the slashes in the embroidered overskirt. Pru bent to the music, her body swaying like a willow in a windstorm. She grinned to herself as she worked through a complicated riff, gratified when cheers rose through the tavern hall.

Pru played the final notes with a flourish. She held her violin and bow in the same hand while she used her other to grab an offered tankard of ale. She held it aloft, a satisfied smile warming her voice.

“Folk of the Inevitable Goat, you have been a wonderful audience. I’m Prudence Marsh, and if you haven’t heard of me yet, you should probably start spreading the word so your friends don’t embarrass themselves the same way!”

Feet thundered on the floor, and patrons hollered their cheers as Pru downed the bitter, warm beer in one long glug and lifted her violin again. “You all know ‘The Sun King’s Bride,’ don’t you?”

This one they could sing in their sleep. As the first verse slipped into the chorus, Pru let out a loud whoop and simplified her fiddling to just a few punctuating chords so she could sing along with the now-raucous crowd.

She leapt onto a table, kicking high so her skirts fluttered. The crowd went wild, singing along in that sloppy, shouting unison that made Pru’s cheeks hurt from smiling. She slipped into a complicated, impressive violin solo before the bridge, and by the time the lyrics picked up again, she wasn’t the only one dancing.

Unlike many of her friends, Pru had no magic, save for this: She was a damn good performer, and she knew it. She’d met no one else who could hold an audience under their thrall the way she did. And finally, finally, she had left Dragon’s Rest long enough to see if she really had what it took to be a bard. Da would be proud if he could see her right now, with the violin he’d given her, making her way to fame just as they’d dreamed.

My dazzling girl, he would say. Look at you shine.

And then her foot slipped on a dirty plate.

Pru slid across the table into a full split before continuing right off the edge, holding her violin protectively against her chest. She hit the tavernkeeper, Marlow, whose tray of drinks flew in a perfect arc toward the fireplace, heavy tankards spinning and spilling beer like a fountain before barreling into the taxidermy goat on the mantel.

A collective gasp swept through the room as the goat wobbled . . . and fell to the hearth below. The dry sawdust and moons-knew-how-old animal hide immediately caught fire with a deceptively gentle whoosh.

Pru groaned on the filthy floor of the tavern and gave herself until the count of three before springing back to her feet, ignoring the ache in her hip where she’d hit the table. She whooped, and the silence broke, but not in the way she’d expected. Instead of laughter, she heard a sob. A woman rushed toward the burning goat, and another held her forcibly back.

“Stefano!” she cried miserably into her friend’s blouse.

Pru looked around in alarm. “Who’s Stefano?”

“Stefano was our town’s hero,” said Marlow, his face scarlet. Pru took in his drenched, slightly foamy clothes, his dark bushy brows drawn low over narrowed eyes. She followed his gaze to the fireplace.

“. . . The goat?”

“Yes, the goat!” Spit flew from Marlow’s mouth like sparks from the fire. He swept an arm over the room. “This is out of control.” Pru looked around, noticing the smashed plates, the collapsed table, the patrons mopping spills from their clothes. At the fireplace, two people used the shirts off their backs to smother Stefano, but it was clear from the smoke-and the smell-that the old boy would never be the same. “I hired you to entertain, not deface a public icon and destroy my establishment!”

“It’s hardly destroyed!” Pru protested. “In fact, I’ve alerted you to the lack of structural integrity of your furniture! You should seek reparations from the carpenter.”

“I’m the carpenter,” said a gruff voice next to her. Pru turned to see a woman with massive biceps and a rapidly swelling eye, recognizing her belatedly as the person she’d kicked in the face when she fell. “You saying my work is shoddy?”

“Of course not.” Pru patted the woman on the shoulder and summoned every ounce of her charm. “I’d order a table for my dining room, if I had a dining room, which-alas!-I don’t. You might make them a smidge better for dancing upon, but-“

“They weren’t meant to be danced upon,” growled the carpenter.

“Precisely,” agreed Marlow with a self-righteous nod. “You can’t just traipse about like this, stomping on people’s furniture, breaking people’s dishes.”

“Plus, she killed Stefano!” someone added.

Pru resisted the urge to remind them all that Stefano had been long dead based on how quickly he went up in flames.

“I’m sorry,” she said demurely instead. “It was an accident.”

“Aye, and it’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often, with you playing like that!” Marlow’s fury hardened into something quieter but no less poisonous. “We are simple folk. We don’t- This- It’s too much. You’re too much. And you’ll never play here again.”

A hard knot formed in Pru’s throat. “I’ll leave.”

“Not until you pay me for damages, you won’t.”

“Pay you for-?”

Another voice cut her off. “Darling!” Pru turned to find the handsome hazel-eyed singer from the crowd. “I knew that was you!”

He pulled her to himself for an overly familiar embrace. Pru’s hand splayed over the simple but fine material of his shirt, dark blue linen loosely laced to reveal a smooth, muscled chest. Had his collar been so far open when she saw him only moments ago?

“Play along,” he whispered roughly in her ear. Louder, he said, “I’ve been searching for you for weeks!” He leaned conspiratorially toward the innkeeper, though he spoke for the whole room to hear. “It was the very eve of our wedding! There I was in my best suit-and folks, I look great in a suit-and she vanished!” He was the very picture of a jilted lover, pressing a hand to his heart as he lamented, “The cake, the guests, the wine . . . all to waste.”

Excerpted from Prudence Marsh Is Not a Nobody Anymore by Emily Krempholtz Copyright © 2026 by Emily Krempholtz. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Book

A musician leaves her quaint town in search of a bigger life, only to get tangled up with a mischievous bandit and a royal heist in this delightful and poignant new cozy fantasy romance from the USA Today bestselling author of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore.

Prudence Marsh has always known she’s meant for more than playing violin at small-town taverns, so when she learns of an audition for a royal wedding, she knows this is it: her chance to be somebody. After years putting everyone else first, Pru sets out to finally pursue her dreams of being a famous bard.

     Callum DiCorvo, roguishly handsome cursebreaker and bandit extraordinaire, is content with his life of crime. So content, in fact, that he’s determined to keep things exactly as they are. Cheerfully thieving is all he’s good for anyway.

     When Pru collides with Callum and his crew in a roadside robbery that leaves her beloved violin in splinters, she demands to travel with the bandits until they replace it. Before long, Pru finds herself growing close to the motley bunch, especially Callum, whose sparkling banter and crooked smiles tease her like a song she can’t get out of her head.

     But the bandits have stumbled upon a heist that could make all their dreams come true—breaking into the mystical Lune Vault at the palace on the same night as the wedding—leaving Pru to decide what’s more important: the dreams she’s held onto for so long, or the ones she’s building right now?

About the Author

Emily Krempholtz is a bestselling ghostwriter, editor, and book coach. She lives in sunny Colorado, where you’ll often find her in the mountains—either hiking (and pretending to be a character in a novel) or curled up in a hammock with a book (also pretending to be a character in a novel). She’s on a lifelong quest to discover the magic in the world and has a sneaking suspicion the written word is where she’ll find it.

Praise for Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz

“a romance that, gently and pleasantly, asks questions about power and its uses.”

–The New York Times

“Krempholtz’s novel, a mostly cozy fantasy with just a touch of grumpy/sunshine romance, takes a story of redemption and second chances and mixes it delightfully with a town full of secrets, creating a tale about surviving dysfunctional family to become the person you were meant to be.”

–Library Journal, STARRED review

“This debut title is a solid fit for fans of Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes (2022) or Amanda
Flower’s Magic Bookshop mystery series as well as for those who grew up with Disney’s The
Descendants. If anyone deserves a redemptive arc, it’s Violet. Cozy and whimsical, this is a fun
dive into a fantasy world.”

–Booklist

“An irresistibly delightful cozy fantasy filled with plant magic, love, and second chances! I absolutely loved this warm and wonderful book!”

—Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Enchanted Greenhouse

“I have rarely read a book so charming! Violet Thistlewaite might not be a villain anymore, but she’s definitely stolen my heart.”

—Ashley Poston, New York Times bestselling author of The Someday Garden