*****5 stars
*Note: I read this book on NetGalley. It will be published on February 25, 2025 but is available for pre-order at https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Passenger-Novel-Frances-Quinn-ebook/dp/B0D57VB3R8
Elinor Coombes has a problem. She married a rich man she was chosen for because of her father’s money. Believing he loved her, she was happy at first. Then she learned he was in love with someone else, a woman pretending to be her friend. The worst part was they had a son who would inherit the family fortune and title. Because of this, she was hardly allowed to spend any time with him and was informed that he would be sent away to boarding school at the age of seven.
As Elinor rebels against her husband and the life that no longer brings her joy, she is treated by her father to a voyage on the new ship, the Titanic. She convinces her husband to take their son along and leave his nanny behind. On the ship, she meets a woman who has experience with children and offers to help her with her boy. The woman is headed for New York and a family she hasn’t seen in many years. As Elinor befriends her, she learns more about the people that the woman plans to meet and how she intends to start a new life.
When the ship sinks, Elinor and her son escape, but the rest of her family and the woman who was with them perish.
Dreading returning to the life she had and the constraints that would be put upon her son, Elinor decides to take the identity of the other woman. The rest of the book relates Elinor’s experience trying to fit into a lower-class existence, her struggles pretending to be part of another family, and how she deals with protecting her and her son from discovery.
For fans of fictional tales about the Titanic, this book would be a perfect read. It would also appeal to other historical fiction readers.
Ruff Drafts 