Spotlight & Giveaway: A Tempest At Sea by Sherry Thomas

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Sherry Thomas’s new release: A Tempest At Sea

Charlotte Holmes’s brilliant mind and deductive skills are pulled into a dangerous investigation at sea in this new mystery of the bestselling Lady Sherlock series.

After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking, and she might be able to go back to a normal life.

Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder takes place on the ship.

Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation, lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is abroad and still very much alive.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from A Tempest At Sea 

Lord Ingram hurried down the stairs toward the dining saloon. The note that had been shoved under his cabin door read Lady Holmes and maid aboard. How was that possible?
The Provence had sold its last remaining cabins to Charlotte Holmes and company days ago. The passenger list he’d furnished Holmes he’d copied from the duty room, when he’d sneaked aboard last night under cover of darkness, as the ship, quiet and empty, bobbed quayside. And Lady Holmes’s name had not been on the list. How, then, had she obtained her tickets? Who had made it possible, and why?
He stepped into the dining saloon. A well-dressed woman coming from the opposite direction reached Mrs. Newell’s table ahead of him.
“M’lady, here’s the shawl you asked for earlier.” Lady Holmes’s maid?
The maid blocked his view of Lady Holmes, but the latter did not sound pleased. “When did I ask for a shawl?”
“When we were on the train, m’lady,” said the maid, her head bowed in deference. “You said that you wished to have a shawl with you at luncheon, so that you could take a stroll on deck afterwards. But you forgot to take it.”
Lady Holmes’s brows knitted in concentration. Miss Olivia, on the other hand, appeared resigned, as if it were normal for her mother not to remember what she herself had said only hours ago.
“Well, fine, leave the shawl and go,” said a grumpy Lady Holmes. But the next instant she was all smiles. “Well, Mr. Gregory, can I persuade you to join me for a stroll?”
“Ah, I’d dearly love to, but I have not yet unpacked my things,” said a man sitting with his back to Lord Ingram, shaking his head with exaggerated regret.
Before Lady Holmes’s lips could turn down in displeasure, Lord Ingram stepped forward. “My lady, I should be honored to escort you.”
Relief rose all around the table, as thick as steam in a Turkish bath. Mrs. Newell unclenched visibly. Miss Olivia mouthed thank you. Mr. Gregory shook Lord Ingram’s hand as if they were old friends reunited after decades.
And as if he had no idea who Lord Ingram was.
The only person more curious than happy to see him was an exceedingly elderly lady introduced as Mrs. Ramsay, who sported blue glasses and a russet turban that matched her dress. When he inquired whether anyone else at the table cared to join the promenade, Mrs. Newell and Miss Olivia turned him down with alacrity, but Mrs. Ramsay hesitated.
She toyed with a ring on a silver chain around her neck. Occasion- ally widows carried their wedding rings thus, to commemorate their departed husbands. But surely, this ring’s circumference rendered it much too loose for any human hand. Indeed, one would need fingers the size of great big sausages—
It was no wedding band but a ring to encircle the base of a man’s shaft. Holmes had pranked him by making him rescue one like it, perhaps this very one, from the Garden of Hermopolis in Cornwall. And he’d had to give a convincing portrayal of grief while he’d held the infernal device.
He’d never come so close to actually choking.
He should have realized that this was no time for games and that Holmes would leave him a clue as to her identity. But this clue—he bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t burst out laughing.
“Ah, it’s no use,” said Holmes in an old woman’s age-roughened voice. “The idea of a walk is tempting, but these days I need a good nap after luncheon.”
Her face moved a little stiffly, but unless one stared hard—and out of politeness most people wouldn’t—that slight unnaturalness would go unnoticed and one would come away with an impression of age and blue glasses and not much else.
He prayed that this excellent disguise would keep her safe. His and Miss Olivia’s whereabouts were no secret. If Moriarty should think to install someone on the . . .
“I wish you a good rest, madam.” He turned to her mother. “Lady Holmes, shall we?”
Lady Holmes stomped, as if the planks underfoot offended her. It astonished Lord Ingram anew that this woman had given birth to Holmes.
Her blood flowed in Holmes’s veins. Her nose and cheeks were replicated almost exactly on Holmes’s face. Her blond hair—although hers was turning grey—used to bounce in ringlets atop Holmes’s head, before the latter had shorn hers short to don wigs more easily.
But despite their physical resemblance, the two women could not be more different: Instead of forging kinship, God had but plucked a random womb for Holmes to make her way into the world.

Excerpted from A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas Copyright © 2023 by Sherry Thomas. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Excerpt. ©Sherry Thomas. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 Finished copy of A Tempest At Sea by Sherry Thomas (u.s. only, 18+)

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Meet the Author:

USA Today bestselling author Sherry Thomas is one of the most acclaimed historical romance authors writing today and a two-time RITA Award winner. Learn more online at www.sherrythomas.com.

Buy links: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653341/a-tempest-at-sea-by-sherry-thomas/