Publication Date: 20th October!!!!
Formats: Hardback & Ebook
Price: Hb £14.99/ Ebook £5.69
Publisher: Viper
I would like to say a huge thank you to Viper for inviting me onto this thrilling and gripping book’s tour. I would also like to say thank you for allowing me to read and review a physical proof copy which I could not put down. I would like to say a huge thank you to the creative genius, Leonora Nattrass for creating another atmospheric and swashbuckling tale on the high seas. Where we find ourselves wondering who could be the murderer and what will happen next!!! Intrigued? Let’s head over to the blurb and find out a bit more.
Death came aboard with the Cormorant. It arrived on the seventh day of our voyage…..
This is the secret report of disgraced former Foreign Office clerk Laurence Jago, written on the mail ship Tankerville en route to Philadelphia. His mission is to aid the civil servant charged with carrying a vital treaty to Congress that will prevent the Americans from joining with the French in their war against Britain.
When the civil servant meets an unfortunate “accidental” end, Laurence becomes the one person standing between Britain and disaster. It is his great chance to redeem himself at Whitehall – except that his predecessor has taken the secret of the treaty’s hiding place to his watery grave.
As the ship is searched, Laurence quickly discovers that his fellow passengers – among them fugitive French aristocrats, an American plantation owner, an Irish actress and her performing bear – all have their own motives to find the treaty for themselves. And as a second death follows the first, Laurence must turn sleuth in order to find the killer before he has an “accident” of his own.
Avast you reading land lubbers!!! Ok I will calm down and will never try talking like that again (hehe). This book has everything you need adventure, pirates, murderers, shenanigans a plenty and a lot of tension and a group of fascinating cast of characters which are heaped together in one place, and where someone has murderous and devious intentions on board. I loved being back with Laurence and his American friend, though at times I still found Laurence a little bit simple and too trusting with others, also how he didn’t realise where his colleague kept the treaty I honestly don’t know!!! But I love how the plot unfolds and you either sympathise or feel a burning desire to shout at each character either “stop!!!, Don’t do it!!! or “don’t trust them!!” You become if not part of the story but involved with each character and their fates.
With it continuing on from where we left Laurence in the previous book (Black Drop, I would honestly urge you to read if you haven’t) it felt like there hadn’t been a break, from the first page you are gripped right up to the last and I really want to know more about what happens to Laurence next…
I won’t spoil any more of this wonderful book, as it is not yet out but I can assure you it’s a pleasure to read and really gives you a sense of life on the high seas and how people in a tight space can come together and make it an enjoyable voyage but where there is danger, tension and suspicion it can create an atmosphere of fear and betrayal that can quickly ignite into something quite violent. Leonora has done it again and I am left with wanting more….
I would highly recommend this superb novel for anyone who loves espionage and historical fiction.
Ratings: 5 🌟s with a large ☕️ and a large 🍰.
Author’s Blurb:
Leonora Nattrass studied eighteenth-century literature and politics, and spent ten years lecturing in English and publishing works on William Cobbett. She then moved to Cornwall, where she lives in a seventeenth-century house with seventeenth-century draughts, and spins the fleeces of her traditional Ryeland sheep into yarn. Black Drop is her first novel.
I hope you have enjoyed this brilliant and evocative account of murder, secrets and espionage on the high seas and if you are wanting a copy for yourself you can preorder a copy from Waterstones, any independent store and of course on Amazon. I will leave you now to say Happy Reading and see you all soon!!!
Zoe's Book Nook 