Excerpt and secret code contest: 'A Desperate Fortune' by Susanna Kearsley

Susanna Kearsley's next release, A Desperate Fortune, arrives April 7 (that seems like so long from now!). In the meantime, HEA gets to share an excerpt from A Desperate Fortune and let you know about a couple of cool things going on with Susanna and her publisher. One, Sourcebooks is running the Send Susanna to My Hometown contest again this year. Fans can nominate/vote for their hometown. First-round winners will be announced Dec. 16, with the winning bookstores/libraries announced on Feb. 18! Two, Sourcebooks is also offering 10 readers the chance to attend a live online event with Susanna Kearsley. To enter, find the hidden message (details in the excerpt below) and use it to crack the secret code. E-mail the correct answer to publicity@sourcebooks.com. Winners will be announced on March 20.

First, here's the blurb about A Desperate Fortune:

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.

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.

Here's the excerpt from A Desperate Fortune …

"Surely that's new," Jacqui was saying to Claudine, her gaze having moved to the painting above the piano, a street scene in winter. "You had a man's portrait hanging there, before."

"Yes, it is new." Claudine smiled. "You have a good memory. The man in the portrait had eyes I wasn't fond of. They would follow me. I sold him and bought this instead." She lifted her sherry glass. "There are two more things I've changed in this room. Two more things that are new. Can you find them?"

A strange sort of challenge, I thought, till I noticed my cousin was smiling in her turn, and realized that it was a game. Not a game I could play, as I hadn't been here before, but Jacqui's keen gaze was already sweeping the salon expectantly.

"There," she said finally. "The tapestried chair by the fireplace. That's new."

"Yes, and what else?"

Jacqui kept up her visual search of the room, but she seemed to be having more trouble with this final item, whatever it was.

Claudine asked her, "Give up?"

"No. Hang on, I'm still looking. I'll find it. I—"

Her words were interrupted by the sound of the back door into the kitchen being opened and then closed again, while someone stepped into the house. A man's voice called in French, "It's only me."

Claudine half turned. "Luc?" Speaking French herself, she told him, "Come and meet our guests."

Still from the kitchen, he called, "That's all right, I just came for my keys. I dropped my own set in the lane and I can't find them, it's too dark. I need the spare set from Denise. Is she not here?"

"If she's not in the kitchen," Claudine said, "she'll only be upstairs a moment. Come and meet our guests."

His voice was deep. Attractive. "I'm in no condition to meet guests. I've just got back, I need a shower."

"Nonsense. You'll look fine. Come, have a drink with us."

He came through from the kitchen to the dining room and strode towards us, and my curiosity became a kind of self-conscious confusion.

He was beautiful. There was no other word for it. He wasn't hugely tall, just average height and with a lean and normal build, but he was beautiful. His face had perfect symmetry, as though an artist had drawn half a face and held a mirror to the drawing—straight nose, level eyebrows, and the clean lines of his jaw and cheekbones, broken only by the fact his hair was parted to the side and fell across his forehead to the right. It was nice hair, light brown and cut in careless layers that half covered both his ears and angled down to brush the back of his shirt collar.

I was staring, and I knew it. I was half-aware Claudine was introducing us, in English, and I held my hand out when I was supposed to, and returned his handshake.

Luc Sabran.

I marked the name, not sure I would remember it because I was distracted by his smile. It was symmetrical, as well, both corners of his mouth turned up to the exact same level to reveal an even row of teeth. And then I saw his eyes.

(Win a chance to attend a live online event with Susanna Kearsley! To enter, go to books.sourcebooks.com/adesperatefortune and find the preview chapters posted there. Break the code: 8.24.9 and e-mail the correct word to publicity@sourcebooks.com.)

His eyes were very French. They had the kind of heavy lids that made them look both weary and intensely interested at the same time. And they were blue. A clear and perfect blue.

Claudine was telling him, "And Sara will be staying with us for a few weeks."

"In the winter? You are brave." His English was less polished than Claudine's, and had a stronger accent, but I didn't mind. At all.

I wasn't sure what I should answer back, though, and while I was sifting through the possibilities I heard the footsteps coming down the stairs from the first floor and we all turned to face Denise.

She said in French, "You're back!" and greeted Luc Sabran with an unstudied double kiss that seemed both natural and warm. "And how was California?"

"Full of sunshine. But I've dropped my keys. You have the spare ones?"

"Yes, of course."

She went through to the kitchen and he turned to take his leave of us.

Claudine reminded him, in French, he didn't need to go. "Have an aperitif. Some dinner."

But he shook his head. "Tomorrow," was his promise, "when I've had a chance to rest and look presentable." To us he said, in English, "It was very nice to meet you both. Enjoy your evening."

Watching him walk off was very nearly as absorbing as observing his approach. He walked as all men ought to walk, with a decided swagger to his shoulders.

Whether Jacqui noticed I was watching him, I didn't know, but after Luc Sabran had closed the kitchen door behind him and gone out with his spare keys in hand, my cousin leaned back in her chair and looked across at Claudine with her eyebrows slightly lifted in the way they often did when she was sure she'd won a contest, and she raised her glass. "He's new."

Find out more about Susanna and her books at www.susannakearsley.com.