Autorentext

Imogen Vane is the debut author of The Department of Dark Errands, a midlife romantasy trilogy set in a world where espionage runs on forbidden magic and memory extraction is just another intelligence tool. Born and raised in the American Southwest, Vane draws from deep African American roots—generations of storytellers, healers, and seekers who understood that survival is its own form of alchemy.

A proud autodidact and lifelong introvert, Imogen writes from the quiet margins, where observation sharpens into insight and imagination becomes a refuge. Her world-building is layered, literary, and lush—with heroines forged not from prophecy, but from reinvention. While she rarely appears in the spotlight, her connection with readers runs deep: through handwritten notes, late-night Q&As, and slow-burning Substack posts that often read like dispatches from another realm.

The Dark Errands series marks a bold entry into the genre of romantasy, centering women over forty, long-hidden magic, and the cost of becoming visible after decades of erasure. It is at once a spy thriller, a reclamation, and a love story—for the self, for power, and for the strange, impossible beauty of starting over.

Imogen lives somewhere warm and wild, where the shadows stretch long and the stars are worth staying up for. She is currently working on the second installment in the trilogy—and trusting the dark to lead the way.

Klappentext

A midlife spy with outlawed magic. An ex-lover back from the dead. And a conspiracy that could unravel the Department from within.

What if the most dangerous thing you ever buried... was yourself?

London, rewritten by shadow and spell, hides a secret branch of magical intelligence: The Department of Dark Errands. Its operatives don’t just chase traitors—they hunt the things that slip between worlds.

Nyra Vex was once the Department’s brightest commander. Now, at forty-five, she runs a quiet apothecary on the canals of Little Venice, blending teas for widows and grief-torn strangers, her past life sealed behind scars and silence. But when a shadowbeast tears through her wards and whispers her name, Nyra is dragged back into the Department’s grip—reinstated, rearmed, and paired with the one man she swore she’d never see again.

Beck Morran. Her tether. Her lover. Her betrayal.
Dead ten years.
Now alive—reanimated, cursed, and bound to the Patron’s coin.

As Nyra and Beck navigate a labyrinth of assassins, forbidden magic, and conspiracies older than Boudicca, the tether between them reignites—part weapon, part desire, part doom. Every mission drags them deeper into the Department’s living, breathing underworld of archives, sigils, and shadow incursions, where loyalty is tested and survival is never guaranteed.

But Nyra has her own secret. She is shadowmarked. And the magic inside her may be the only thing that can cut Beck free—or burn the world down trying.

Perfect for fans of Rebecca Yarros, Deborah Harkness, and Killing Eve, Shadowmarked is a darkly seductive blend of spy thriller, witchcraft, and midlife romantasy. With dangerous men in three-piece suits, blades forged in blood, and a heroine who’s equal parts apothecary and assassin, this is not a story about staying safe.

It’s about choosing which shadows you’re willing to burn for.