The sinking of the Titanic remains a subject of interest, even more than one hundred years later. The challenge for writers is to spin the tale in a new and interesting way, and Elizabeth Blackwell has done a fine job in that regard.

The novel begins with three women passengers and their backgrounds, and then soon takes us to Lifeboat 21 and its various inhabitants and challenges. The question of taking on more passengers from the freezing water. The chain of command which is quickly put into place. The water that seeps into the boat through a poorly placed plug.

In the later pages, we are re-introduced to Anna, Charlotte and Esme twenty years later, and we see the effect of the Titanic's sinking which continues to haunt each of them.

You may think you know the ending, but I urge you to read to the very last word to see the twists and turns of this remarkable story.

I read this EARC courtesy of NetGalley and Lake Union. pub date 04/10/18

Wonderful writing, great storytelling. Loved all of the characters and the setting. However, wishing the ending came together more. Was left wondering...

I did not care for this book at all. I could barely get through the first couple of chapters.

This was a spin on a familiar story. What happened on one of the lifeboats as they watched the Titanic sink? The story was told from the point of view of three different women who all shared the same lifeboat. The book sets up the story with some unanswered questions, and I liked how the author shared some of the answers throughout the book, instead of stringing the reader along until the very end, only wrapping up all the missing pieces in the last few pages. It gave the book a nice flow and the characters were set up well to where you got to know quite a bit about them.

Well written,good description of the titanic tragedy. Unusual to have leading female characters who are a bit bad.She was very likeable tho.

I thought that this book was well written and I enjoyed the format. I especially liked the scenes of the book that described events the characters were experiencing that cold April night in 1912. I would like to have had more explanations of the secondary characters. The conflict did not seem to fit within the narrative of the story, and it would have been just fine without it.

I was really enjoying this book until the last chapter, i kept waiting for Charlotte, Anna and Esme to meet up , the ending i felt didn't make sense and seemed rushed.

Excellent!! So much more to this than "just another Titanic novel." There was a depth to the characters, and a realism, that had me wanting to know what happened to each of them, where they went, how they fared. Highly recommended!

What is it about the Titanic? There have been other maritime disasters, other tragedies that resulted in great loss of life, but we are continually drawn back to Titanic. In Blackwell’s book, three very different women board the ship, one as part of a con, one as a married woman planning a tryst with another man, and a third looking to start a new life in America with her family. The stories unfold first before Titanic, then aboard her the night of the sinking, then some twenty years later as they all come to terms with what happened on the lifeboat that carried them to safety. An engrossing story about survivor’s guilt in the aftermath of a great tragedy