Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "titanic"

Sheltering Angel: A Novel Based on a True Story of the Titanic by Louella Bryant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Andrew Cunningham, a Scotsman, seeks a life at sea and becomes a steward of the White Star Line’s RMS Oceanic in 1889. The possibility of disaster is always in the back of his mind, but he enjoys his work and is good at doing the bidding of first-class passengers under his care. He marries, has a family, and meets Florence and Bradley Cumings, an American couple, on his last voyage aboard Oceanic before transferring to the newest vessel of the company, Titanic.

In 1888, Florence Thayer, a minister’s daughter, falls quickly for the stockbroker, Bradley Cumings, who joins them for Sunday dinner. She’s intelligent, well spoken, and likes to help the less fortunate. She juggles service with marriage and family while her husband becomes successful in business. Although reticent to leave her sons, the couple enjoy their European vacation until just before they are to come home; a coal strike means only one ship is setting sail for the States: RMS Titanic. The maiden voyage proves to be the icing on their romantic getaway … until the collision. Florence and Andrew find themselves in the freezing Atlantic waiting for someone to rescue them.

One may ask, why read another Titanic novel? Sheltering Angel goes far beyond the usual sinking and dying story. This story is personal for the author; Florence Cumings was her mother-in-law’s grandmother, and this novel recounts how a friendship between two disparate people sprang from tragedy on that fateful night in 1912. Poignant, spellbinding, and gut-wrenching, this tale vividly depicts who these two people were and how the sinking affected them. Readers are transported to the White Star Line’s heyday and get a feel for what it was like to work for the company. It’s also a revealing portrait of what the survivors faced upon arriving in New York.


(This review originally appeared at Historical Novels Review: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...)



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