GRACE ARISING is the third full-length novel in The White Sails Series. The burgeoning 1840s New Holland wool market is irresistible to entrepreneurial souls prepared to brave the open oceans. Having survived unimaginable tragedy together, Grace and Seamus Fitzwilliam plan a fresh start aboard their new ship, Elias.

Lucius Chittenden, the new first mate, comes highly-recommended, and with the return of the trusted crew, the journey promises smooth sailing. The Elias is bursting with goods for the colony as well as shepherds for Gilly Downs, but it is not long before a theft is discovered, souring the mood aboard.

While Chittenden’s demand for expedience guarantees blistering speeds, it comes at a cost to the men’s morale, and sets Seamus and Grace at loggerheads. Seamus believes the officer pragmatic, Grace believes him cruel. When Chittenden’s cavalier attitude results in him shooting Seamus, Grace has Chittenden chained to the hold. With Seamus gravely injured, she assumes command of the Elias, taking responsibility for seeing her crew and family to safety.

The demands of navigating a tall ship across stormy seas, while trying to keep Seamus alive and managing her children, sees Grace bowed by duty. Sheer grit keeps her at the helm, affecting an air of steadfastness and complete control—but do the sailors see this in her? And will she make it to New Holland in time to save Seamus’s life?

Be prepared to be swept away from the smoggy skies of London, across the roiling Indian Ocean, and returned to beloved Gilly Downs in New South Wales as GRACE ARISING delivers more romantic, historical adventure, sea stories. The White Sails Series is historical women's fiction, touted by readers as, if Bridgerton and Pirates of the Caribbean had a love child.

Emma Lombard