On a Cold Dark Sea by Elizabeth Blackwell is a historical fiction novel based around the sinking of the Titanic. Being a fan of fiction set around real life events I knew as soon as I saw this book that I needed to read it, especially being addicted to books centering around the Titanic.

The book is a completely fictional tale of three women who boarded the ill fated ship. The first section of the story introduces Charlotte, Esme and Anna in their own chapters that tell their stories of what events in their lives led them to eventually boarding the ship. All three are from different backgrounds and economical statuses bringing a glimpse at the diversity of the passengers.

Then we land in the second part which follows the ladies in their lives twenty years after they survived the sinking. The three had landed in the same lifeboat despite their vastly different backgrounds and it’s hinted at what transpired that night but also shows what they did with their lives afterwards. The third section then takes a closer look at the night of the sinking that had been previously eluded to with then part four wrapping the story all up.

Despite Charlotte, Esme and Anna’s differences I still easily connected to each as their stories were being told and felt that I was transported back to the early 1900’s quite easily. When the actual events of that fateful night are brought into the story they were done quite well following what we’ve learned was going on that night and giving these characters their own personal narrative. Once I picked up the story I became totally engaged and just didn’t want to put it down until the very end, definitely recommend checking this one out.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

When I found out that this book was about the Titanic, I almost didn't read it. I've read books about the Titanic and seen the movie a dozen times so what could possibly be new that would interest me in another book on the subject. I will tell you strongly - I was wrong, very very wrong. This is another look at the story told in a unique and interesting way and based on deep research by the author. I loved this book!

The book is told in four parts about three main characters so in each section, we read the viewpoint of each of the characters. The four sections of the book are Before, After, On the Life raft and Aftermath. In before, we meet the three main characters and find out how they ended up on the Titanic. The aftermath takes place twenty years after the tragedy where we find out how these characters lived their lives after the tragedy. The characters are all from vastly different socio-economic levels - Charlotte is a con artist, Esme is a member of the very rich and Anna is a Swedish farm girl. Three women who never would have met, end up on life raft 21 together and it changes their lives.

Overall, this was a wonderful, well told novel and I highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union for this wonderful book.

I started this book with no expectations because I usually do not like books about the Titanic. But it pulled me in and I could not put it down. It was not just set on the Titanic but about several lives spared when it sank. Before boarding, during and after. From several characters point of view. It was absolutely a wonderful awesome book. I won’t forget this one for a while.

This is one book I would love to see a sequel to. Only because of the ending to see what happened. It was so good. I was crying in parts, smiling in other and my heart broke in several places. It’s an emotional read but yet uplifting too. If that makes sense. It was just all around good. I read it in record time. Loved it. I will read more by this author.

I had to give this book 5 stars and it would be way more if possible. Loved it from start to finish.

Three and a half stars: A story about three women whose lives are forever changed by the sinking of the Titanic.

The night of April 15, 1912, forever changes the lives of three different women as they bob on the cold dark sea huddled in a small lifeboat after the sinking of the Titanic. Esme, a wealthy American traveling first class, is relieved that she managed to save her secret lover, while feeling guilty that her husband is among the drowned. Charlotte who has been betrayed by the man she loved, is angry and determined as she tries to save a drowning man. Anna, a young Swedish girl, swims for her life and is plucked from the sea, but devastated because she left behind her two friends. Fast forward twenty years, each woman has moved on, created a life, some happier than others. Then a sudden death brings the past back to the forefront, and each woman is forced to face the secrets they buried that night. Will they move beyond the Titanic?

What I Liked:
*Here we are one hundred and six years beyond the sinking of the Titanic, but we are just as riveted by the doomed ship as ever. This latest book, On a Cold Dark Sea, features three different women: one from first, second and third class as they survive the sinking of the great ship and move forward with their lives. This was a fascinating story about survival, loss and grief, and life. I was drawn into this tale.
*I have to admit, I wasn’t a fan of some of the characters. Charlotte and Esme are difficult to like. Charlotte early on survives by swindling, lying and stealing. I didn’t like her at all. However, she grows and changes after the Titanic, and I slowly changed my opinion of her. She evolves and becomes a likable character, which was so rewarding as I almost set this book aside in the beginning because I didn’t like her at all. I was especially impressed when Charlotte seeks out George. Esme is a privileged girl who finds herself in an adulterous affair. I can’t say that I grew to like her like I did Charlotte, but I was still entertained by her story. Anna, the Swedish girl, was by far my favorite. Anna is hardworking, kind and loyal. I was happy to see that good things came her way. These three women had their flaws, and I appreciated that they were real and that I was drawn in by all of their stories.
*For those of you who are groaning thinking not another Titanic book, I assure you that even though this book revolves around the sinking of the Titanic, the famous shipwreck is not the key focus of the story. In fact, the time spent aboard the Titanic and the sinking was a small part of the story. Most of the book involves the lives of the women before the sinking and then twenty years after. Being a Titanic enthusiast, I did enjoy the portion aboard the Titanic.
*I liked that this book features a women from each of the classes. I enjoyed getting the perspective of a wealthy socialite, a second class woman and then one from steerage. This book shows the differences in the division of wealth and how very different the lives of these three women were.
*I appreciated that this book was well researched and that the author tried to remain as true to events as possible with over embellishing and so forth. In the author’s note, she discusses all the books she read in order to research the Titanic and bring forth her story.
And The Not So Much:
*The ending was not my favorite. I didn’t like the way the reader is left dangling as Charlotte imagines her future. It was strange for me. I didn’t need a neat, tied off happy ever after, but the weird imagining what her life might be like was not a good ending.
*As I mentioned earlier, I struggled with both Charlotte and Esme early on. So much so, that I wanted to stop reading but I kept on. Charlotte is a swindler and a liar, and I was not a fan. Esme is spoiled and engaged in an adulterous affair. Charlotte makes up for her indiscretions which saved her character. Esme, not so much. I wish that Esme had redeemed herself more. I did appreciate that the characters were flawed and realistic.
*I was interested in Charlie and disappointed that more of his perspective wasn’t featured. It was hinted that the sinking and the aftermath adversely affected him. I wish that more depth and detail on his life had been provided.
*I wish that had been more of the hearings after the sinking in the book. This part of the disaster is rarely covered, and I would liked to have had more of this portion of history.

On a Cold Dark Sea is another work of historical fiction centered around the Titanic. This book is much more than the sinking of the big ship. It is an up close look at the the lives of three very different women from the three distinct classes. The reader gets a glimpse of each woman’s life before, during and after the sinking. This was a fascinating and entertaining read. Be warned that not all the characters are likable and patience is required, but it pays off in the end.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.

The Titanic is my all time favorite movie, so when I read that this centered around the events of the Titanic I had to read it. This particular story is about three women, Esme, Charlotte and Anna and their experiences. Esme is a first class traveler on her honeymoon, while Charlotte who happens to be posing as a married woman is traveling in second class. Then there is Anna, she is traveling with Theo of her friends in third class. These three women come from very different walks of life, and each were strong in their own ways but they soon find themselves thrown together on a lifeboat as the Titanic starts to sink.

The story is told in 4 parts. The first being a little bit about the women before the sailing of the ship. It was nice to get to know some about them before they went through all that they did. Second, we are introduced to the characters 20 years after the Titanic tragedy and what their lives were like then. The story then shifts back to the awful night when the ship is sinking, and the events that took place both on the ship and in the life boat.

From everything we learn from these women as we’re reading, it was clear that their lives were changes in the most traumatic way, and each were still dealing with those haunting memories and decisions of that night, and that their lives would be forever entwined. But, I also found myself a little disappointed that their time spent trying to survive the sinking was given to us so late in the book, we had already learned how they fared 20 years later, so it was a bit anticlimactic for me. I know others will probably have no problem with the story being told this way. But I will say the ending did have a bit a twist to it, and that I really did enjoy.

Overall, this was a great read for me, and was a haunting story of survival and moving on.

Three time frames, three women, and the Titanic make for interesting historical fiction. Esme, Charlotte, and Anna all have an issue or two (and secrets) but they find themselves together in a lifeboat as the Titanic goes down. I liked the structure of the book- with the women's back stories in the first section, the aftermath in the middle, and what actually happened in the boat in the last. An unusual choice and a risky one. All three women are well drawn and you'll find yourself both questioning some of the their choices and applauding them for others. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. There are any number of Titanic based novels out there and this is one of the better ones.

Three women: Esme, Charlotte and Anna. All survivors of the Titanic whom have to bear the burden of being rescued when so many others didn't - including their loved ones.

Esme - born and married into wealth, returning to the United States on her honeymoon.

Charlotte - lower class English-woman who is seeking to escape her options in England.

Anna - in love with someone who has already immigrated to the States but travelling on the Titanic with his fiancée.

The beauty of this story is that it's not strictly about the sinking of the Titanic -rather we get each character's perspective of what she survived and then we skip ahead twenty years.

Divided into 4 parts, we get a glimpse into the night of the sinking; then skip ahead 20 years, get a glimpse into their lives; we are then thrown into the lifeboat that saved all three women and get some clarification as to what bonded them together; and finally we tie up some loose ends (perhaps a little too neatly, but not in a way that ruins the rest of the novel).

This is a story that is nicely told; each character holds her own and brings along with her a great little backstory. It was well written, didn't lag and didn't spend too much time detailing something that we already all know so well. It really was built on the strength of the characters - and I liked each one of them individually.

If you enjoy historical-fiction I think you should give this book a shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Engaging, well written and well paced. It doesn't get water-logged with too much historical detail, but allows these women to come to life.

Recommended read.

The Titanic; it was supposed to be the most wonderous ship ever built. But for Esme, Charlotte and Anna, surviving that fateful crossing has stalked their whole lives, each in very different ways. Particularly because each of these three women were on different classes of tickets, and this isn’t a story mainly about the tragedy, but rather about what came afterwards for them. Blackwell’s newest work is therefore a different kind of Titanic novel.

I must honestly admit that I’ve never read any books about the Titanic until now (although I’ve seen a few films about it). That’s is certainly surprising since the Titanic is one of those subjects that has inspired well over a hundred novels and several movies. However, most of them focus on the sinking itself and/or the immediate aftermath of the incident, and very few seem to investigate what became of the lives of those who made it through. I’m not sure if that’s why I decided I wanted to read this book, but it must have been part of it. What I didn’t realize when I requested this novel was how Blackwell’s vision for this book is so unique.

What makes this book different than so many of the others, is that Blackwell not only focuses on these survivors’ lives decades after the event, but that we see behind the scenes of the types of people that the real newspapers, and probably by their virtue, most books (both fiction and non-fiction), never covered. Blackwell gives us Esme, an American first-class passenger, Charlotte, a British second-class passenger, and Anna, a Swedish third-class passenger, all of whom ended up on Lifeboat 21. To make this even more interesting, Blackwell gives each of these women a secret.

Let me get the bad news out of the way here, and that has to do with how Blackwell put the account of the events in the lifeboat into this story. After we hear about these three women’s stories after the sinking, Blackwell goes back to the “scene of the crime” (if you will) to give us an overview of those events, before taking us to these women again. At first, I thought that this was altogether superfluous, but later understood why it was included. However, I just have a feeling that she put this in the wrong place in this book. It felt more like having a prologue show up in the middle of the story, and out of context. Not that it wasn’t written well, because it certainly was, it just broke up the story’s overall flow for me.

That said, this was the only thing that bothered me about this book, because everything else was very enjoyable. The idea that these three women from very different worlds, all end up on the same lifeboat, is the perfect backdrop for mystery. Blackwell also throws in some fictional transcripts from the US Senate’s inquiry into the disaster, which nicely sets up one of the later chapters. Through these portraits of their post-disaster lives, Blackwell brings in the types of psychological scars and emotional tolls that long-term silence and guilt can have on a person. Of course, the trauma of that voyage only exacerbates these women’s own demons and pasts. Furthermore, Blackwell brings this all together using Charlotte as a kind of pivot point-person, where her post-disaster career in journalism allows her to connect the dots.

Of course, none of this would have worked if the prose hadn’t carried it all through with such precision. Blackwell perfectly succeeds in giving each of these women very distinct voices, setting up the atmosphere with adroitly constructed language, and allowing us to observe the complex emotions that these women go through, which felt realistic, without being predictable or sentimental. Overall, Blackwell’s writing is gracefully unpretentious, mixed with just enough dynamic interludes to punch up the drama when needed, making this into a very imaginative work that I can warmly recommend with a strong four out of five stars.

3,5 stars

This was an interesting story, I liked how the book started out as we got background on the three main characters!We get an idea of how events unfolded from their perspective.We get to know about how the women's lives turned out after the tragedy. I really enjoyed the stories of each woman prior to their journey to America and also after they were rescued.

I’m fascinated with stories that center around the sinking of the Titanic. On A Cold Dark Sea by Elizabeth Blackwell is a well written book chronicling the stories of three fictional women who escaped a watery death that night.This is a fast paced read and perhaps that is why I did not connect with the characters as well as I would’ve liked. However, I was still entertained by the story and would recommend it to others who have a similar interest in stories about the Titanic.

I have read several books with the Titanic as the setting and On a Cold Dark Sea is one I couldn't stop reading. The Titanic tragedy draws me and so I was eager to read this book. The story was so well written and I really liked the way it was told from the perspectives of the three main characters. The story was developed beginning with their separate lives before they found themselves on the Titanic, then on the Titanic and the sinking with them on a lifeboat, and then the afterward story of what happened to them years later and how the tragedy made their lives different than they planned. The fate that put them all on the Titanic and how they became connected was traumatic. I felt the anguish, the horror, the shock, the loss as each character experienced the sinking. There were surprises in their stories I never expected at all. I felt the emotions of healing and putting their lives together as the story came to it conclusion. Elizabeth Blackwell did amazing writing this book and I would recommend it. TY!

I loved this book. It is not your typical Titanic novel. I liked how the story focused on three women before, during, and after the sinking of the Titanic. The characters were well written and believable.

I'm always intrigued with stories about the Titanic. I've read In the Shadow of Lakecrest by the author and enjoy her writing style. I thought the author did a great job providing the reader a historic fictional account of 3 women who's lives were in different social classes all end up on the Titanic and eventually in the same life boat. I really enjoyed the stories of each woman prior to their journey to America and also after they were rescued. I look forward to reading more by this author.

I enjoyed this book. This is the first time I've read a fictional story of the Titanic.
This story follows the lives of 3 women who survived the sinking and managed to go on with their lives. Overall this was an enjoyable read and the storyline easy to follow.

I voluntarily read an advanced copy of this book.

Fans of historical fiction should enjoy ON A COLD DARK SEA. This character-driven story follows Charlotte, Esme, and Anna, three women who ended up on the same lifeboat. They come from different circumstances and the author shows us their lives before the Titantic, during, and after. Putting together a book like this with different timelines and multiple POV characters might pose a challenge, but here the end result feels both logical and enjoyable. The climax/mystery of what happened on their lifeboat lacked a little depth for me, but overall I remained interested in these three women and how their lives changed. If you're looking for a plot-driven thriller, look elsewhere. But if you want a well-written deep dive into characters who experienced a tragedy together, ON A COLD DARK SEA is well worth your time. Especially recommended for fans of THE LIFEBOAT.

The first third or so of this book tells the captivating stories of three young women with very different backgrounds, and how they came to be on the Titanic that awful day in history when so many people lost their lives. This was my favorite part of the book. The middle is where we learn how their lives turned out in the aftermath of the sinking, by which time I was still enchanted with Anna, but growing tired of Charlotte. The last part of the book is where we learn through a flashback, what it was like for them that harrowing night in the lifeboat. Although this is a work of historical fiction it felt quite realistic to me and in line with some of the true life accounts I have read concerning the way passengers were treated according to class and the lack of emergency training provided to the crew, along with the insufficient amount of lifeboats.

I’ve always been intrigued by the tragedy of the Titanic, and really enjoyed this novel that tells the fictional different stories of several different survivors, The characters themselves are all so different and interesting. I loved how all of their stories eventually connected and intermingled. The only thing that slightly disappointed me was the ending - to me, it didn’t feel like an ending. Overall though, this book is great!

I liked how the book started out as we got background on the three main characters- Charlotte, Esme, and Anna - who ultimately end up in a lifeboat together when the Titanic begins to sink. Throughout the book, the various chapters alternated between the three women, giving an idea of how events unfolded from their perspective. We got to read about how the women's lives turned out after the tragedy and the events that unfolded that lead them to one another again. Given how the women were before the Titanic, some of their lives turned out quite different than might have been expected. I enjoyed Anna the most as she was the most honest of the three. I received an ARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley - my opinions are my own.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable read. I enjoy reading stories (fiction and eyewitness accounts) of the Titanic story. This story was split in various sections (before the Titanic, after the Titanic, On the lifeboat, and the aftermath) and followed three main characters throughout (Anna, Esme, and Charlotte). The beginning of the book was good. I loved reading about each of the women, and I felt that their characters were well developed. I like how the women were from all different backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. This allowed for a well rounded look at the story from people of all different walks of life. While I enjoyed the development of these three women, I found that by the end of the story, everything was falling flat. There was such a build up for the main plot line of the book, and I personally felt the plot to be a letdown. It wasn't a strong enough conclusion to follow the writing from the beginning of the book. However, I did enjoy the author's writing and will happily read more of her books, if given the opportunity!

Three women, three different lives, three separate stories which all merge on Lifeboat 21 of the Titanic. I found the introduction to each of the women the strongest and the best written portion of the book. Each of the three is well portrayed and their background stories held my interest.

The section of the book dealing with the passage on the Titanic, its sinking, and how each woman came to be in the lifeboat was well told. The additional characters introduced at this point are all of “a type” and play their parts well. The decisions made by the survivors in Lifeboat 21 was heartrending but completely believable.

The balance of the book was less cohesive. It was a mélange of each woman trying to come to terms with her choice and her life after that fateful night in the lifeboat. None are left unscathed. Each has suffered. Each has survived. The ending was uncertain.

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an ARC.