Published By: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 416
Released On: 27/02/2025
In the chaos of that terrible night, her secret went down with the Titanic. But secrets have a way of floating to the surface…
Trapped in an unhappy aristocratic marriage, Elinor Coombes sees only lonely days ahead of her. So a present from her father – tickets for the maiden voyage of a huge, luxurious new ship called the Titanic – offers a welcome escape from the cold, controlling atmosphere of her husband’s ancestral home, and some precious time with her little son, Teddy.
When the ship goes down, Elinor realises the disaster has given her a chance to take Teddy and start a new life – but only if they can disappear completely, listed as among the dead. Penniless and using another woman’s name, she has to learn to survive in a world that couldn’t be more different from her own, and keep their secret safe.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I looooooove Frances’ books, so much!
In fact The Smallest Man – Frances’ first book – was one of the first reviews I ever posted on this blog. The Smallest Man is set in the 1600s, and her follow-up, That Bonesetter Woman, was set in the 1700s. This book, whilst still historical, is set in a more recognisable and familiar age of the 1900s.
We all know about the Titanic and what happened, but we rarely give a lot of thought to the individuals on the ship, those who died and those who survived. We tend to see them as a number, those 1,500+ that perished, rather than see them as each individual people, as mums and dads, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives and children. And so it was interesting for Frances to pick that as a focus.
Frances has a knack of picking the underdog, or the person who doesn’t fit into society’s place for them, and making them the star of their own life, and this is no difference.
The Titanic doesn’t really comes into it until about 30% of the way through, which at first I thought was too late. I’d have liked a bit more set on the Titanic, but that’s just personal taste. But in hindsight I’d say it feels about right, as it gives us a good amount of time to get to the know the characters, which in turn makes the rest of the story feel deeper. And this isn’t a story about the Titanic, not really, it’s more about what happened to the people after rather than during.
It has a lot of well-developed characters in it – as I’ve come to expect from Frances’ work. Elinor is a beautiful protagonist and has such a real voice and a presence about her. I really felt for her. It would have been quite easy to depict her as this little rich girl who complains about being rich and have no sympathy for her but I really felt like her friend. There are many other characters, some good and some bad, some in it more or less than others. But there isn’t a wasted one amongst them, and they really helped develop Elinor’s story.
It’s not the easiest book to read, and not just because of the obvious sad Titanic parts. But the bits about Elinor’s life beforehand, what she has sacrificed, what she’s willing to do to protect her son. It really does pull at the heartstrings.
It’s like two different stories – one set before the Titanic and one after – and usually I would say I didn’t like that because they often don’t join up, but I liked it with this book. It gave us a clear divide and made for an interesting read to see just how much had changed after the incident.
I suppose the one thing I would have liked is if we’d had more about what was happening in England at the time Elinor was in New York. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed what was there, but part of me was wanting to see what had happened to those she’d left behind.
It is a very well researched book and it’s clear Frances has a real passion for the characters and the story she was telling.
It’s like a Cinderella story in reverse, in a way. A girl born into wealth, but man-made wealth rather than inherited, who marries into peerage and has everything she could possibly want, who then, seemingly overnight, finds herself in a situation where she has to share a toilet with 20 strangers. It’s a riches to rag story. But she finds a different kind of riches amongst the people in New York.
Even amongst all the death and grief, hardships, hatred, anger, lies and fear, this book has so much love and joy and more importantly, so much hope about it, it really is very heartwarming.
Books By Your Bedside 