Blog readers this week have the treat of an extract from Jenni Keer’s new novel The House of Lost Whispers. Published on 27 April 2025 by Boldwood Books this title is attracting lots of high star reviews!
Thank you, Morton, for letting me pop by your wonderful blog again. It’s always such a joy to visit and your virtual biscuits are the best!
On this occasion, I’m sharing a short extract from my recently published EIGHTH novel – The House of Lost Whispers. It’s an historical romance but, as with many of my books, there’s a twist. Olivia Davenport is orphaned when the RMS Titanic sinks with her parents on board. Sent to live at Merriford Manor in Norfolk with her guardian and his four adolescent sons, there is heartbreak on the horizon as WW1 looms. As a particularly imaginative child, Olivia finds solace in a friendship with an imaginary voice through the wall in her tower bedroom… But what if the voice isn’t in her imagination? What if the voice exists in an alternate reality? One where the Titanic had never sank…
Chapter 1
Sunday 14 April 1912
The unprecedented sales of his last book, The Mystery of the Broken Violin, had afforded Mr Jasper Davenport and his wife the finances to sail across the Atlantic Ocean on the largest, most luxurious steamer in the world. It was to be truly the trip of a lifetime and, with public readings at various literary societies lined up in several large American cities, a potentially profitable one to boot.
The Davenports, however, were devastated when their only daughter presented with a blotchy rash the week before their departure. The doctor confirmed what they all suspected: thirteen-year-old Olivia had contracted measles. Selina Davenport was all for cancelling but was eventually persuaded by her husband that they should go ahead because the child had battled the worst of the illness before they were due to set sail. Besides, he pointed out, by being on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, they were certain to go down in history and, as an author of adventure novels, it was an experience he couldn’t afford to miss. He already had in his mind an idea for a story set aboard a great ocean liner, so he planned to treat the trip as research.
From the moment they stepped foot on the ship, they were in awe of both the size and magnificence of this engineering marvel and, as first-class passengers, they were treated like royalty by the crew. Their Louis XVI triple-berth stateroom was the height of luxury, with electric heaters, horsehair-stuffed sofas and marble washstands. Rich Axminster carpeting had been laid in the first-class reception area, the Georgian smoking room boasted a carved Italian marble fireplace, and the grandeur of the main staircase was unparallelled.
Eager to remember every detail, both for the novel he was planning, and to share with his daughter upon their return, Jasper made extensive notes on everything from the bevelled mirrors and fine Irish white linen, to the quirky characteristics of his fellow passengers. Thomas Andrews, the exceedingly amenable Harland and Wolff naval architect who had designed the ship, was on board and was happy to talk about the construction and outfitting of the vessel. Captain Edward J. Smith proved incredibly helpful with his polite enquiries as to the procedures followed should someone pass away whilst they were at sea. Jasper even chatted to some of the children playing shuffleboard and quoits on deck, wondering who his daughter might have befriended had she been present.
All of the information was carefully written up in his leather-bound notebook, and although it wouldn’t make up for Olivia missing this most momentous of journeys, sharing this with her when he returned home was the least he could do.
On the Sunday morning, the Davenports attended the church service, led by the captain, in the first-class dining saloon. Afterwards, Jasper set to work outlining his next novel at the small table in their room on A deck. The room itself had inspired the fictional setting for the grisly murder of a wealthy Manhattan heiress, and he could already picture the scene: her dark-red blood pooling into the thick carpeting and an ivory-handled dagger sticking from her back. One of the more talkative stewards, who regularly answered the bell push above the bed and served them their morning tea, had been earmarked as a possible character in the book. A particularly theatrical fellow, Jasper could quite see him being the one to discover the body, running down the corridor with his hands in the air and wailing like a woman.
That afternoon, he helped his wife secure a deckchair on the promenade. She sat with a tartan steamer rug across her knees to read a book; not one of his though – she complained that they were rather too violent for her tastes, centring as they did, almost entirely around men. He then took himself off to the first-class smoking room and settled in one of the leather-upholstered armchairs, where he engaged some of the other passengers in a lively political debate.
That evening, the couple dined on oysters, filet mignon, roast duckling and peaches in Chartreuse jelly. The temperature dropped sharply and by eleven o’clock, they were tucked up, snug in their four-foot-wide bed, complete with its impressive ornamental brass bedstead. Selina placed her cold toes on her husband’s bare legs and he chastised her, before relenting and allowing her icy feet to remain.
At exactly 11.39, he rolled over in his sleep and flung his arm across his wife. On the ship’s deck, unbeknownst to him, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee were in the crow’s nest, ninety-five feet in the air, alert for hazards in the water. The air temperature had fallen to near freezing, and below a clear sky, punctuated with sparkling stars, the ocean was as calm as a millpond.
But, at precisely that moment, an anomaly in the magnetic field surrounding the earth allowed radiation from the sun to enter the atmosphere and shoot along every vein of metallic ore that ran through the planet. The resulting vibrations disrupted the very fabric of space and time and, inexplicably, a duplicate earth was formed as the reality of this world cleaved into two. Few people noticed anything amiss as it lasted the tiniest fraction of a second. A jolt in our physical existence. A juddering of time. But those magnetic ripples were felt through every deposit of copper and seam of iron that ran from the molten core of the planet to the earth’s crust.
For most of the 1.8 billion people going about their lives, this involuntary wrinkle was not even noticed. But on that night, at that exact moment, when the very survival of over two thousand passengers was at stake, every fraction of a second made a difference to the tragic sinking of a luxury liner somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, four hundred nautical miles from its intended destination. On that night, in that exact location, that ripple mattered…
I hope the opening of the book is enough to whet your appetite!!!
Jenni x
About Jenni Keer
Jenni Keer lives in the glorious Suffolk countryside with her four grown up children, three demanding cats, but just the one husband. She is often frustrated by their inability to appreciate that when she’s staring into space, she’s actually working, and that watching television counts as research. Much younger in her head than she is on paper, she adores any excuse for fancy-dress and is part of a disco formation dance team.
Keer has written two contemporary rom coms and six quirky historicals, with another due out in the autumn.
The best-selling No. 23 Burlington Square (her 1920s sliding doors mystery) has now sold over 100,000 copies.
Find Jenni @jennikeer on all social media platforms
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Thank you so much for having me over, and letting me share an extract of The House of Lost Whispers. You are so very kind.
Jenni x
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You are always welcome! 🤗
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