Today I’m sharing a teaser for Susanna Kearsley’s latest offering, A Desperate Fortune! We’re starting with an excerpt, keep reading to break a code for a chance at attending a live online event with Susanna!
Read an Excerpt from A Desperate Fortune:
The problem with hindsight, I thought, was that there were just too many documents. And when they touched on the issue of stockbroking I was at sea.
As I passed through the kitchen Denise, chopping something to bits on the worktop, looked up. “Heading out?”
“Yes.”
“You should wear your coat,” she advised me. “It’s cold once the sun sets.”
“I’m not going far. I’ll be back before dinner.”
In the tops of the tall bare-branched chestnut trees in the back garden a chattering cluster of swallows was gathering, filling the air with the sound of their wings as they rose and resettled, preparing to fly. They were likely midway through migration, those swallows. A long way from home.
Through the trees and above the grey wall at the end of the garden I saw a light burning a warm golden welcome upstairs in the window of Luc’s house. I passed through the door in the wall and went out to the lane and along underneath the low archway of branches. His car was parked where it should be, at the side of the house, and the lights were on downstairs as well. As I climbed the short flight of curved steps to the porch I could hear Noah laughing—a small, friendly sound in the darkening evening that tugged somewhere under my rib cage.
I reached for the dangling cord of the old-fashioned bell Luc had hung to the side of the door. It was rusted from being exposed to the weather, but I liked the clear sound of its ring.
When the door opened I felt surrounded by warmth from the light in the entry hall and the quick genuine flash of Luc’s smile as he stepped to the side and invited me in.
I had not yet been inside the house. It reminded me of my aunt’s mock-Tudor cottage: a central hall plan with two rooms at the front and a kitchen behind and a staircase that climbed from the back of the hall to the bedrooms above. I knew that the door at the back, at the foot of the staircase, led into the kitchen because of the smells of roast chicken and some sort of vegetable drifting out from it. The front entry hall was narrow and I felt the brush of Luc’s arm on my own as he swung the door shut again, then turned to me as though waiting for me to decide what the form of our greeting should be.
We had moved past the handshake, I thought, so I led with the bise. He was due for a shave and smelt faintly of Scotch, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “I wasn’t aware you wore glasses,” I told him.
“I need them for reading. I’m old.”
“Thirty-two isn’t old.”
“You’ve been learning my secrets.” He looked at the handful of papers I’d brought. “Do you need me to take you somewhere?”
“No.” As much as I wanted to physically follow where Mary had gone, it would not have been practical. Going to Paris was one thing, but driving across all of France was another. Besides, she was moving too quickly and not staying long enough in any village or town to make seeing those places of use to my work.
I said, “I need your help with a stock fraud.”
He honestly had the best smile. Through the frames of his glasses I saw his eyes crinkle a bit at the edges. “OK.” With a nod to the room just behind, he said, “Come have a drink.”
A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley ISBN: 9781492602026
Published by Sourcebooks, Inc. on April 7th 2015
Format: Paperback
Pages: 528
For nearly three hundred years, the cryptic journal of Mary Dundas has lain unread. Now, amateur code breaker Sara Thomas has been sent to Paris to crack the cipher.IndieBound • Amazon • The Book Depository • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
Jacobite exile Mary Dundas is filled with longing—for freedom, for adventure, for the family she lost. When fate opens the door, Mary dares to set her foot on a path far more surprising and dangerous than she ever could have dreamed.
As Mary’s gripping tale is revealed, Sara is faced with challenges that will require letting go of everything she thought she knew—about herself, about loyalty, and especially about love. Though divided by centuries, these two women will be united in a quest to discover the limits of trust and the coincidences of fate.
Contest!
Sourcebooks is offering 10 readers the chance to attend a LIVE online event with Susanna Kearsley. To enter, read the excerpt above and break the code: 16.13. Email the correct word to publicity@sourcebooks.com. Winners will be announced on March 20th!
About Susanna Kearsley
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Susanna Kearsley is known for her meticulous research and exotic settings from Russia to Italy to Cornwall, which not only entertain her readers but give her a great reason to travel. Her lush writing has been compared to Mary Stewart, Daphne du Maurier, and Diana Gabaldon. She hit the bestseller lists in the U.S. with The Firebird (a RITA winner) as well as, The Winter Sea and The Rose Garden (both RITA finalists and winners of RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards). Other honors include National Readers’ Choice Awards, the prestigious Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize, and finaling for the UK’s Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Her popular and critically acclaimed books are available in translation in more than 20 countries and as audiobooks. She lives in Canada, near the shores of Lake Ontario.
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