Sunday, August 24, 2014

Review: The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor

This one is bound to please Titanic fanatics, romance readers, and historical fiction fans.  It's was a bit tear-jerky for my taste, but it's well-written, gives us good insight into the main characters, and provides enough detail that the reader definitely can feel the disaster as it happens.
Ireland, 1912, Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Seamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again. Chicago, 1982, Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction, and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago.
 I found the ending rather contrived, although I disappointed myself in that I hadn't seen it coming.  It's still a book worth spending some time with.  Not a barn burner, but a good comfortable read - either for these last weeks at the beach, or to settle down with as the autumn creeps in and days grow shorter.


Title: The Girl Who Came Home
Author: Helen Gaynor
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (2014),  egalley 384 pages
Genre: historical fiction
Subject: travel on the Titanic
Setting: Ireland, onboard Titanic
Source: Net Galley

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