About the Book
When Savannah history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski, she’s shocked. The ship sank after a boiler explosion in 1838, and the wreckage was just discovered, 180 years later. Everly can’t resist the opportunity to try to solve some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the devastating night of its sinking.
Everly’s research leads her to the astounding history of a family of eleven who boarded the Pulaski together, and the extraordinary stories of two women from this family: a known survivor, Augusta Longstreet, and her niece, Lilly Forsyth, who was never found, along with her child. These aristocratic women were part of Savannah’s society, but when the ship exploded, each was faced with difficult and heartbreaking decisions. This is a moving and powerful exploration of what women will do to endure in the face of tragedy, the role fate plays, and the myriad ways we survive the surviving.
My Review
I do enjoy dabbling in historical fiction every now again, and this storyline sounded too intriguing to pass up. I didn’t know much the Steamship Pulaski disaster, and it was heart-wrenching reading the tales of those onboard and the decisions the passengers had to make after the boiler explosion. There was an air of suspense throughout most of the novel that kept me invested in reading from past to present to piece the full story together. I enjoyed reading about each strong female lead and how they survived surviving and what that looked like for them, If you enjoy historical fiction I would highly encourage this one.
4 stars
