Entertaining and immersive. A recommended purchase for collections where historical fic or Titanic tales are popular.

While I enjoyed this book as a whole, I didn’t love the POV change in the middle and definitely got bored in the middle. Overall though, an entertaining way to pass the time.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel tells the true story of three orphans who survived the Titanic. The characters were very fascinating. However, there were many unnecessary scenes that distracted the reader from the main plot. Still, I recommend this for anyone interested in the Titanic.

This book is a historical fiction based on a true story about two children who survived the sinking of the Titanic without their parents. It's a slow book so for some people who find it boring, you probably will DNF'ed this book earlier. I need more facts etc about Titanic but somehow...it lacked of those.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC!

Celia Imrie a renowned actress and novelist has written an absorbing novel about the Titanic .A book that revolves around an unhappily married couple about two divorce.A story of two babies that kept me involved,The crash of the Titanic the people on board an excellent novel.#netgalley #bloomsbury

I'm a fan of Celia Imrie- both her novels and her acting- but this latest was meh for me. Told by Marcella, her husband Michael, and New Yorker Margaret, it's the story of three people whose paths cross on the ill fated Titanic. Unfortunately, to me at least, Marcella, meant to be the character you most feel for, was also the most irritating. Now 21, she's married to Michael and has two little boys and she wants a divorce. She lost me early on with the scene where she rashly pulls down expensive fabric in the tailor shop where she works and cuts it- with pinking shears. And so on. And the writing of her section didn't help. Then there's her husband Michael, whose back story interesting but who is also irritating. Margaret, well, over to others to decide about her. It takes a long time to get to the Titanic and the events there. This is a rare pass from me. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I was disappointed so I'm looking forward to Imrie's next one.

The research part of this book was well done but the retelling was mediocre. A lot of the narrative was boring and not relevant to the story. The story of the Titanic is well known and many children were displaced. The outcome for these children was positive but the suffering for so many was a result of this disaster . The book just seems to drag and it was only toward the end of book did anything exciting occurred.

Having a lot of "feels" with this one after realizing it's an ACTUAL true true story! I'm just blown away more now.

Marcella is immediately drawn to Michael Navaratil from the moment she meets him. She aspires to become a famous singer, however she is swept off her feet by Michael and they marry. They have two very young boys and Michael is no longer the man she fell in love with. He is hostile and constantly suspicious of her. He is resentful of her love for their sons. Marcella, finally fed up, consults a lawyer about a divorce, but before it is final, Michael makes a decision that changes all their lives.
This story started a bit slow, with a lot of back and forth from past to present. The lawyer, who comes off as being a big part of the story, is never mentioned again afterwards. In fact, none of the characters from the very beginning, save for a few, are mentioned again at the end. Once we get to Michael's part of the story, the pace picks up. I loved learning facts about the Titanic and what the survivors experienced after the lifeboats. My heart broke for Marcella and I actually felt sad for Michael as well; he obviously loved his sons to some extent. I felt like we didn't really get to know Margaret that well, she is such an important character but was not built up that much.
For me, realizing this was a true story, after finishing, made me reflect and appreciate the story even more.
I am left wanting to learn even more about the characters!
Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsburg USA for providing me with the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Orphans of the Storm tells the back story of Michel and Edmond Navratil, two of the youngest survivors of the Titanic sinking on April 15, 1912. Michel and Edmond, both toddlers at the time, were being kidnapped by their father Michel Navratil, who is locked in a bitter divorce and custody battle with their mother, Marcelle. Imrie introduces the couple as they meet in Nice when Marcelle Caretto is a naive eighteen-year-old with dreams of becoming a singer. Michel Navratil, who was older, had ambitions of becoming a tailor to the wealthy and powerful. Their romance seems shaky from the beginning and does not take long to deteriorate into estrangement. The characters are so well-developed that readers will find themselves disliking Michel Navratil more and more as the story unfolds. Imrie recreates the setting of the gilded age as she draws the reader into the lives of the Navratils. Fans of historical fiction will appreciate the leisurely pace of the narrative and the attention to historical detail.

I had hopes this would be a really interesting book - but it wasn't what I was expecting. It starts out as Marcella, the wife of a tailor and mother of 2, walks into an attorney's office to start divorce preceedings. The majority of the book is a recounting of all the things that happened before that day - we learn how she met Michael, he convinced her to marry him on a business holiday to London, they open a tailor store, have two boys and he starts turning very possessive and abusive. Michael learns of her decision to divorce him, takes the boys and books passage on the Titanic under an alias to escape her and the bankruptcy of his business, among other transgressions.

It's an odd story - very slow to start and it took a while to get into the story.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a temporary, digital ARC in return for my review.

This a a fictional look at a real Titanic story, the Navratil children.

Michael Navratil is a Hungarian dressmaker, and his wife Marcella wants a divorce from her cruel husband. However, things change when Michael disappears with the children. And it turns out that he’s planning on leaving France on the Titanic, which obviously turns into a tragedy.

I have some mixed opinions about this book. It was incredibly slow for almost the first part of the book. Once the Titanic part came in, it certainly picked up its pace a bit. That being said, Celia Imre clearly did her research into historical details and she portrays the atmosphere of time and place extremely well. Ultimately, it was a solid read in some ways but there wasn’t much action for a bit, and New York born Titanic passenger Margaret was really the only character I liked.

Imrie, best known for her work on stage and screen, pens a tale of the breakdown of a marriage, the ensuing custody fight over the children and the sinking of the Titanic. A thoroughly entertaining story of the tragedy we can’t seem to get enough of