Maiden Voyage by Sarah Jane, 2018

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Isabella is shocked when her parents book her passage on the incredible Titanic and inform her that she'll be sailing by herself. She is given an envelope and told the contents will explain everything, but she is forbidden from opening it until the boat reaches the U.S.

Lucille is worried over her mother's poor health, and her father is always distracted, never around. Left to her own devices, Lucille discovers some dangerous secrets that could tear her family apart.

Abby is desperate. She's all her little brother has in the world, and her only hope is start a new life in New York. But the only way to do that is to smuggle her little brother aboard the Titanic and hope they can last the week without him getting caught.

Three girls, three different classes on the ship, yet their pasts and futures are more intertwined than they know--and their lives are about to be forever changed over the course of the Titanic's maiden voyage. That is, if they don't all drown in secrets first.

(256 pages)

I think at this point most regular readers of this blog know that I used to be obsessed with the Titanic.

The Titanic Museum in Belfast

By "used to be" I mean "not-so-secretly still am." Over winter break, I travelled (basically pilgrimaged) to Belfast, Northern Ireland to check out their Titanic museum on the ground where it was constructed.

I have to be perfectly honest and say that it's been a fair while since I actually read Maiden Voyage (I snapped it up as soon as I got it, but haven't neeed to review it for quite a while), and I don't have my copy here in college so I can't thumb back through it. I've actually forgotten a fair bit of the story, which I suppose in itself says something about the book.

Anyway, this is the third fictional novel I've reviewed on here set on board the Titanic. Of those, I do know that it's definitely my favorite. I actually cared about the characters and their stories, and I found the representation of the atmosphere onboard the Titanic in all three classes to be pretty authentic. I liked that there were a couple different storylines going on, and I found all of them to be pretty interesting (if quite melodramatic at times, even before they hit the iceberg).

My main complaint is that I kept getting the girls confused, especially Isabella and Lucille. It's strange, because their names are nothing alike, but I think they were just such generic names of similar "poshness" (and let's be honest, Isabella actually sounds more highbrow than Lucille does) that I couldn't keep track of which name went to which character. I had to stop and recalibrate a few times while reading, but other than that it wasn't really a huge problem. Just a nuisance.

Anyway, Maiden Voyage is a nice read both as a "chick-flick" type drama novel and as a pretty authentic historical fiction set onboard the Titanic. I quite enjoyed it, and I hope you do, too.

Comment below and tell us what really nerdy place you would travel to visit!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.