Dr Henry Parker and his wife Evelyn have lived on a cruise ship for years, as Henry is the ship doctor. But now Dr Parker is missing and Evelyn just can’t find him. While searching the ship for her husband, she meets a variety of passengers who are amused by her stories of the past.

We realise early on that Evelyn has dementia and the topic is handled with such beauty.

Joanna Nell's delightful novel, THE LAST VOYAGE OF MRS HENRY PARKER, is a simple story of love, loss and living.

In 1953, Miss Evelyn Des Roches, qualified nurse and daughter of the former French Ambassador to Britain, boarded the Orcades bound for Australia and a career in midwifery. On the way, she met the ship’s Assistant Doctor and the rest, as they say, is history.

Miss Des Roches married Dr Henry Parker and as Mrs Henry Parker has lived the past 60 years at sea. She knows every port and will tell anyone who listens stories of her life travelling the world. She knows the rank and occupation indicated by the epaulettes on each uniform and shares her superior knowledge of the ships' customs. The crew treat her with deference … and forbearance.

A product of the age when ladies dressed for dinner, she is quite shocked when her fellow passengers arrive in the dining room in shorts and slacks - really have they no sense of decorum? Mrs Henry Parker, naturally, wears evening dress and a tiara as befits the wife of a retired ship’s doctor living aboard the Golden Sunset.

There are a couple of little wrinkles in Mrs Henry Parker’s life; why is it so hard to remember some things and so hard to forget others? But she has a way of reminding herself of who’s who, for example, the stateroom attendant “who is not Virgilio” is “Tuesday’s child … Grace”.

Much more concerning, however, where is Henry?

I love Mrs Henry Parker (not having been formally introduced I don’t feel it would be proper to call her Evelyn); well what’s not to like about a lady who knows all 143 verses of The Rime of The Ancient Mariner as well as the finer biographical points of Florence Nightingale’s life and work? She tells us a sad, funny, poignant, uplifting story over a period of 7 seven decades.

The publisher’s synopsis of this novel says “The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker is a love letter to the memories we make over the course of a lifetime, and how the heart remembers what matters, even when the mind has long forgotten.” Highly recommend.

EXCERPT: Evelyn knew that she and Henry, like the ship that was their home, were approaching the end of their lives. Yet the older she got, the less she worried about getting old. It was as inevitable as the weather, and just as unpredictable. Like the weather, it could be forecast but not controlled. Best to be prepared, Evelyn maintained, but go ahead with the picnic regardless. When it came to ageing, the best you could do was to carry an umbrella, and a life jacket.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: As the wife of retired ship’s doctor Dr Henry Parker, Evelyn is living out her twilight years aboard the Golden Sunset. Every night she dresses for dinner and regales her fellow passengers with stories of a glamorous life travelling the world. The crew treat her with deference. And forbearance.

But when Henry goes missing, Evelyn sets off to search every part of the ocean liner to find him; misadventures are had – all new to Evelyn. If only she could remember the events of the night before as clearly as she can recall the first time she met Henry on a passage from England to Australia in 1953 and fell in love – abandoning her dreams to become a midwife to be a wife instead – and the long-ago painful events that left Evelyn all at sea.

Why is it so hard to remember some things and so hard to forget others? And where is Henry?

MY THOUGHTS: Oh how I enjoyed my insomnia last night. I adore Evelyn. I am sure that I know her. And Nola. And Frank. I see some of myself in Evelyn, as will most people facing their twilight years.

I love the way she has of linking words to find the right one. How I used to (silently) laugh at my mother when she would run through all our names before plucking out the correct one/s.

Joanna Nell has a wonderful understanding of the vagaries of ageing and has treated her subject with both empathy and humour. She has written a wonderfully touching story of a woman who has become lost in the familiar, and her attempts to navigate her way through her changing lifescape. I only hope that I can face the future with Evelyn's courage and fortitude.

The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker is a book that had me smiling, crying and laughing out loud. Repeatedly. I read this in one sitting. Absolutely delightful. And inspiring. And not at all predictable. There are a few little surprises in store for the reader.

#TheLastVoyageOfMrsHenryParker #NetGalley

😊🤣😥😍🤗

THE AUTHOR: Joanna Nell is a UK born writer and doctor. Her short fiction has won multiple awards and has been published in various journals and literary anthologies. In 2016 she was awarded a residency at The Bundanon Trust. Her bestselling debut novel The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village was published by Hachette Australia and Hodder & Stoughton (UK) in 2018.
A former ship's doctor, Joanna now works as a GP with a passion for women's health and care of the elderly. She writes character-driven stories for women in their prime, creating young-at-heart characters who are not afraid to break the rules and defy society's expectations of ageing.
Joanna lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches, and as the mother of teenagers enjoys long walks with her dog and talking to herself.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Hachette Australia via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker by Joanna Nell for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system, please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page, or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage

‘Her mind had popped out, visited elsewhere for a while. It had returned home to find Henry gone.’

Evelyn Parker and her husband Henry have spent much of their life together cruising around the world. Evelyn trained as a nurse and was on her way to Australia in 1953 by ship when she met Dr Henry Parker, a ship’s doctor. After they married, she gave up work to accompany him.

Evelyn has been Mrs Henry Parker for a very long time. She can’t work out exactly how many years they’ve been married (the maths is beyond her just now) but she’s very concerned that Henry is missing. The Golden Sunset may be a big cruise ship, but surely Evelyn can track him down.

‘Alone, surrounded by seven hundred strangers.’

This delightful story (it is both sad and funny, heart-wrenching and uplifting) steers us through a minefield of ageing, confusion and memory loss, guided by love.

Evelyn Parker may have trouble remembering people’s names, what time it is and exactly where her cabin is, but she does remember the past. And her stories of the past entertain others, especially her newfound friends (fizzy cola) Nola and (earnest) Frank. She’s concerned that there’s such a young person pretending to be the ship’s doctor, and her handbag does not seem to be quite as accommodating as it once was (otherwise why would she have such trouble finding important things?). Poor Evelyn, searching the ship seems more difficult than she thought it would be, and the doctor keeps nagging her about tablets she needs to take.

But where is Henry?

I enjoyed this novel. The ending wasn’t quite what I expected, but that’s okay. Life is like that, even in novels. I have a feeling that Mrs Henry Parker will adjust to life onshore just fine, as long as she can hang onto her memories of the past and others can keep her safe in the present. This is Ms Nell’s second novel: I’ve added her first to my reading list.

‘Just as she was slowly letting go of the present, the past was slipping away too. Her memories were little more than distorted echoes of events long ago.’

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Hachette Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

“Home. Evelyn considered the word. What did home mean? The place where one lived? Not bricks and mortar, certainly, for theirs had been made of steel and glass. If home meant family, then this ship and all its crew and passengers were the only home she could remember. But if home was the place where she and Henry were together, side by side as man and wife, then she was already homeless.”

The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker is the second novel by Australian GP, author (and former ship’s doctor), Joanna Nell. As Evelyn Parker joins another cruise on the Golden Sunset, she recalls boarding the liner for the maiden voyage as wife of the ship’s doctor. She can’t see him right now, but Dr Henry Parker will turn up soon, she’s assured by the stewards who look after her so well. Cruising on this ship has been their life for the last twenty years, so everyone knows them well.

But Henry is proving elusive: he’s left a breakfast tray in the cabin, but he’s not there now. And someone has left her a parcel: a pair of lace-ups that turn out to be very comfortable, and will be just the thing if she’s going to search the ship for Henry, not to mention doing her daily laps of the boat deck.

The young woman who says she is the ship’s doctor (just a girl!) would like a chat; Evelyn avoids that by heading for Mindful Colouring (whatever that is) in the Library. As she colours in a bird (An owl? An eagle? A seagull?) a chatty lady (Nola) and her agreeable husband (Frank) are very interested to hear all about how she first met Henry, and the many cruises they have done.

Later, she can’t always remember their names, but she likes them: “Evelyn still couldn’t think who these people were. One generous, verging on wasteful with words, the other so frugal. Whoever they were they belonged together, she decided, their talking budget well balanced.”

Everything she needs for her search is in her handbag: “Evelyn opened her handbag, hoping to find a clue. The clasp sprang open, revealing all manner of objects. The tiara. An unopened letter. A fountain pen and a spare bottle of blue-black Quink. Mints. Coleridge. A wooden carving of a turtle and its baby.” A trained nurse, Evelyn often quotes Florence Nightingale, as well as Henry’s favourite, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, from memory.

The narrative switches between the present day, as an often-confused Evelyn searches for Henry, and the past, from 1953 onwards, as Evelyn remembers or relates the events of the life she shared with him. Her recall of much of the past is crystal clear, but sometimes: “Evelyn rummaged through the untidy drawer where her thoughts and memories lay tangled in bits of old string, paperclips and spare batteries. She simply couldn’t find what she was looking for, the words skimming across the surface of her comprehension.”

Evelyn is a wonderful character: sometimes reserved or critical, but she also gives a lot of joy and is often just an anxious old lady about whom it’s difficult not to care. “She liked it when Nola talked, even if she couldn’t make sense of the words. Silence, she decided, was far more frightening. It only made her worries and fears easier to hear.”

Nell’s portrayal of senile dementia is an insightful and sensitive one: Evelyn’s thought processes, and the utterances that ensue, show just how poor memory, distraction, confusion and occasionally flawed logic can lead to seemingly meaningless sentences.

She often gives the reader a wonderful turn of phrase: “Back in the present, the woman was talking again, a conveyor belt of words and sentences that Evelyn could barely keep up with” and “Her thoughts scattered like a shoal of fish from a shark” and “When the doors opened, however, it was full of soft-bodied passengers pressed together like marshmallows in a jar. She tutted her judgement. She blamed elasticated clothing for the overcrowding in modern-day elevators” are examples.

There’s plenty of humour in this novel: lots of laugh-out-loud moments; but what makes this a really heart-warming read is the care and patience that all the ship’s crew show a clearly-demented Evelyn on her final cruise. They all know and love her, even if she often can’t remember their names, despite her clever mnemonics. And it’s Evelyn’s interactions with some of the support cast that may cause a lump in the throat and tears to well in the final chapters. Funny and feel-good, a wonderful read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Hachette Australia

Really enjoyed this book from Joanna, and liked the way she addressed all the memory loss and feelings that Evelyn had. I liked the way the book was very well rounded.

I can't give this one the love that other reviewers are giving it! I found I was just plain uncomfortable with the premise that a woman in the early stages off dementia could be left wandering around a cruise ship for days.

That did not work for me but putting it aside it was a well written book with a lot of interesting back story. The character of Mrs.Parker was certainly well written - I wanted to gather her up and help her much like a few of the passengers did. The ending was unexpected and a bit over the top, but I can't say any more or I will spoil the book for other readers.

For me it was interesting and irritating in equal measure, but everyone else seems to love it. Read it and see what you think!