THE LIFEBOAT: A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED 
THE LIFEBOAT

BY CHARLOTTE ROGAN

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she'd found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.

PRAISE FOR THE LIFEBOAT:

“…with echoes of Joseph Conrad, Lord of the Flies and the Ancient Mariner. Rogan has waited until her fifties to publish her first novel and the wait has paid off. It is that rare thing — a book that is as compelling as it is profound.” --THE SUNDAY TIMES

“a dark, brutal novel” that is also “vividly exciting, beautifully paced and surprisingly funny.”--Justine Jordan, THE GUARDIAN

“Perhaps only fiction can tackle the moral dilemmas braided into the survivor’s tale. A compelling and disquieting first novel, The Lifeboat, by Charlotte Rogan (Virago), addresses this question with a rich, enthralling subtlety.” --Robert McCrum, THE OBSERVER

AN EXCERPT FROM THE LIFEBOAT:

We passed jagged splinters of wood and half-submerged barrels and snakelike lengths of twisted rope. I recognized a deck chair and a straw hat and what looked like a child’s doll floating together, bleak reminders of the pretty weather we had experienced only that morning and of the holiday mood that had pervaded the ship. When we came upon three smaller casks bobbing in a group, Mr. Hardie shouted “Aha!” and directed the men to take two of them on board, then stored them underneath the triangular seat formed by the pointed aft end of the boat. He assured us they contained fresh water and that once we had been saved from the vortex created by the foundering ship, we might need to be saved from thirst and starvation; but I could not think that far ahead. To my mind, the railing of our little vessel was already perilously close to the surface of the water, and I could only believe that to stop for anything at all would decrease our chances of reaching that critical distance from the sinking ship.

There were bodies floating in the water, too, and living people clung to the wreckage—I saw another mother and child, the white-faced child holding out its hands toward me and screaming. To finish reading this excerpt, visit Charlotte Rogan's website HERE.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Charlotte Rogan graduated from Princeton University in 1975. She worked at various jobs, mostly in the fields of architecture and engineering, before teaching herself to write and staying home to bring up triplets. An old criminal law text and her childhood experiences among a family of sailors provided inspiration for The Lifeboat, her first novel. After many years in Dallas and a year in Johannesburg, she and her husband now live in Westport, Connecticut.

MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW:
THE LIFEBOAT by Charlotte Rogan would not be my typical choice in a book to read but when I read the premise of passengers in lifeboats and how they survive, it caught my attention. I thought it would be an interesting character study and indeed that is what Rogan did with it.

The book begins in New York with Grace Winter and two other women passengers from the lifeboat. They were all charged with murder and while Grace pleads not guilty, the other two women plead self-defense. With Grace’s lawyer instructing her to write down all that she remembers before she must stand trial, the story then is told as if taken daily from Grace’s journal and written from her point of view.

1914 finds Grace, newly married to Henry, a wealthy American, aboard the Empress Alexandra that catches fire while out to sea and sinks.  Obviously Grace survives as she is telling the story but what really happens to everyone else and while on the lifeboat is VERY slowly revealed through Grace‘s narrative. Charlotte Rogan did a fine job creating the setting of the story through the use of mental images that you can easily envision.

How the story ends was interesting as were the characters. However, I thought things slowed down a bit in the middle and lacked sufficient action to keep a reader totally involved. Luckily, the characters are interesting enough that it kept me reading because it then picked up speed once more. I did find it frustrating that certain obvious things that are hinted at are never revealed. I think more about Grace and Henry’s love prior to the accident might have helped me to care more about what happened to Henry. Overall, I was satisfied with THE LIFEBOAT but it didn’t motivate me to want to plan any kind of voyage too soon for more than one reason. 

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO ANNA AND MY GOOD FRIENDS

AT LITTLE BROWN WITH HACHETTE BOOKS,

I HAVE ONE COPY OF THIS WONDERFUL

BOOK TO GIVE AWAY TO A FOLLOWER

 

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GIVEAWAY ENDS AT
6 PM, EST, MAY 15

GOOD LUCK!