Spotlight & Giveaway: The Lady on Esplanade by Karen White

Posted November 4th, 2025 by in Blog, Spotlight / 26 comments

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Karen White’s new release: The Lady on Esplanade

 

Spotlight&Giveaway

 

People and secrets from the past threaten to disrupt Nola Trenholm’s new life in New Orleans in the third novel of the Royal Street series by New York Times bestselling author Karen White.

 

Nola is ready to focus on starting over in the Big Easy. She wants to get back to work on the renovations of her Creole cottage, and she is eager to launch a new murder-house-flipping business with contractor, closet psychic, and part-time nemesis Beau Ryan. After a near-death ghostly encounter and the return of Beau’s missing sister, they are confident that the ghost of his mother can finally rest.

Nola believes the shotgun house on famed Esplanade Avenue is a prime fixer-upper for her first project. It may have been the site of a woman’s murder and the disappearance of an entire family, but the house will be perfect for new-to-town Cooper Ravenel—who happens to have caused Nola’s first heartbreak.

That’s the least of Nola’s worries, though. In addition to the elusive spirit of an angry young woman who accompanied Cooper to New Orleans, the house on Esplanade has its own ghosts, including one that is becoming increasingly dangerous as he tries to hide his dark secrets. And the wet footprints from the spirit of Beau’s mother have returned to let them know there is still unfinished business before she can rest. Spectral danger is headed toward them, and it’s up to Nola to convince Beau to help before it’s too late. . . .

 

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Lady on Esplanade 

The following morning I awoke to a song playing on my iPhone. I never used music as an alarm, because it wasn’t enough to wake me, and the music now playing made my sleeping brain cells tumble around one another, trying to name the song. It took me a moment to identify “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele, and another moment to recall that I didn’t have any Adele songs on my playlist. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her music; it was just that her songs were overplayed enough that I heard them whether or not I wanted to. Like now.

My eyes popped open, my brain registering the absence of the scent of brewing coffee. I sat up and sprang from my bed, dislodging Mardi from where he lay spooning next to me. He snuffled once, then nestled back into the covers. I stared at him enviously, and not just because I wished I could go back to sleep. I crept toward my door and placed my hand on the knob as I succumbed to a sense of dread. The last time this had happened, Jolene had packed her bags—and Mardi— and headed home to Mississippi, leaving behind only a note saying she’d return soon.

I’d later learned that she’d left because Jaxson had kissed her. I couldn’t imagine how long she thought she needed to recuperate after yesterday’s seismic blow. My heart hurt for her, but I hadn’t had a chance to speak with her yet. Cooper had driven me back to the apartment, and Jolene’s bedroom door was already closed when I came in. After taking a deep breath in preparation for whatever I needed to do to be the kind of friend she’d been to me, I opened the door and peered out.

At the round dining table Jolene sat in front of her open laptop, surrounded by neat stacks of her signature Crane linen stationery with what appeared to be numbered lists in her crisp and precise handwriting covering the pages. Her hair wasn’t as poofy as she liked it, but it was sprayed neatly in place, and I would have sworn that she was wearing the same outfit she’d worn the previous day. Of course, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and the lack of caffeine could have been impairing my memory. She looked up in surprise, then glanced at her Wizard of Oz watch.

“Good gracious! I was so lost in party planning that I lost track of the time.” She jumped out of her chair and pulled an adjacent one out for me. “Just have a seat and I’ll get your coffee and warm up some of the blueberry muffins I made yesterday—”
“Please don’t. Really, I can do it—”
“Sit down, Nola. Or, better yet, go run a brush through that rat’s nest on top of your head while I go pour you a cup and reheat those muffins.” She dashed into the kitchen, the movement followed by the clanging of dishes a moment later.
“Okay,” I said, pretending I hadn’t heard her mention a hairbrush as I slowly lowered myself into a chair. Jolene’s ordering me around was nothing new, nor was her ability to operate on very little sleep. What was new, however, was that her feet were bare. Normal for the rest of us, but for Jolene it was a clear sign that she was having an existen‑ tial crisis.

As I listened to her rushing around the kitchen, I eyed the quantity of lists and notes littering the table. If Jolene had slept at all, it hadn’t been for long. I imagined the desks of the D‑Day planners would have been similar—but their notes would have been less complicated and definitely not on Crane stationery.

Excerpted from THE LADY ON ESPLANADE by Karen White, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2025
 
 

Giveaway: A print copy of THE LADY ON ESPLANADE

 

To enter Giveaway, please share this post and leave a comment to this Q: What did you think of the excerpt spotlighted here? Leave a comment with your thoughts on the book…

 

This giveaway closes 3 days from the date of this post.

 
 

Meet the Author:

Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including the Tradd Street series, The Last Night in London, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of All the Ways We Said Goodbye, The Glass Ocean, and The Forgotten Room with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives near Atlanta, Georgia.

Buy: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/719877/the-lady-on-esplanade-by-karen-white/
 
  

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26 Responses to “Spotlight & Giveaway: The Lady on Esplanade by Karen White”

  2. Crystal

    I really enjoyed reading excerpt it makes me want to read print book so I can review it it also sounds like a fun book and intriguing too, Love title and book cover too. This is a new author for me so can’t wait to read book

  3. Janine Rowe

    I enjoyed the excerpt. It sounds like it will be a really good book.

  18. Joy Isley

    Thanks for the information on this book. It sounds like the kind I enjoy reading

  23. Kathleen O

    I love books set in New Orleans. Shared on Facebook

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  25. Patricia B.

    The excerpt gives a peek at the relationship between the two of them and the hint of something not quite normal. The books description is very interesting.