A fantastic summer read that I think readers of all ages would thoroughly enjoy. I highly recommend this book, especially if you want something to keep you full wondering what will happen next. Great book overall

For Women's History Month, I picked up Maiden Voyages, a social history of women on ocean liners. This book tells the history of how women worked and traveled on ocean liners. Working on ocean liners was an ideal job for single or widowed women, offering them a chance at independence and financial freedom, along with a chance to see more of the world. The book contains interesting facts about women and the boats they worked on. Of course, there is a section about the Titanic. We also learn about Violet Jessop, who spent 40 years working as a stewardess on ocean liners.

The author also dives into how the ocean liner experience differed amongst women of various social classes.

These narratives were a revelation to me, shedding light on a facet of history that I had previously known very little about. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those intrigued by the intersection of history and travel.

This had the potential to be such a great story in my opinion.... but it lost me with ALL the extra details.
I loved the women and their different stories, backgrounds, cultures however the added details of ships and what I think of as filler words, could/should be less and the book could've easily been 100 pages shorter.

All in all, anyone that enjoys the minute details of history and can follow along or knows the mentionable extras will definitely find this book much more enjoyable. For me, I'd rather it had less factual sounding info and more feelings and drama.

I want to thank NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with an audiobook version of this publication. In return, I have promised to provide an unbiased review.

This was a fantastic audiobook talking about the women that crossed the oceans on ocean liners. This has a wonderful narrator and kept me very interested. I loved the stories that were told about these women that traveled the seas, especially the ones during the early 1900s. I received a copy of this audiobook from Netgalley for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.

An illuminating and engaging read, about a topic I knew little about prior to this reading. Thank you for allowing me to read and review this book. I did prefer it on audio, as I thought the narrator was fantastic.

No one likes to write a bad review, and unfortunately I have to compose one for Sian Evans Maiden Voyages, a richly detailed nonfiction work about the Golden Age of ocean travel - the early twentieth century - and the women who traveled and worked aboard the ships. Sounds interesting, right? Although I typically do not read much nonfiction, I was excited and all in when I started this book, but Evans quickly lost my interest. The problem? She tries to do too much, too fast, and the result is a head-spinning amalgamation of everything "ocean liner" ... even stuff that wasn't about women!

This book reads like a documentary views. In fact, it would likely make a great documentary film because Evans uses anecdote after anecdote to describe life aboard these ships. I could see these stories told against a backdrop of photo and video from the times. In a book, however, it doesn't work because there is no common thread running through these pages. Evans bombards readers with one fact, one anecdote after another, and the result is overwhelming.

I thought I was going to be reading a book that provided an intimate portrait of little known women of the times who traveled and worked aboard ocean liners. I expected to learn much about what life was like on these ships, and what it would have been like to be a woman working aboard one in a time so drastically different from the career-driven female workforce era of today. Instead, Evans uses already well-established facts and stories, and rehashes them throughout her book. I am not sure that there is really anything new to learn here that can't be found elsewhere, making this book, frankly, quite the disappointment.

I listened to an audiobook production of this work narrated by Jilly Bond. Bond does a fine job of deftly pulling listeners into the book and sounding like she is actually from the Golden Age of ocean liners. With nuance and poise, Bond keeps this book moving at a steady clip, and engage readers with a variety of voices and the use of inflection.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Really great read, very interesting and different! would love to own and will recommend.

Maiden Voyages
Siân Evans

Siân Evans Maiden Voyages tells the actual tales of the amazing accomplishments of real women who traversed the open seas during the height of Trans-Atlantic ocean liner travel. Some of these women are wealthy passengers, some are employed by the various lines, some you will know by name and some you will be introduced to for the first time during this book, but all will leave you knowing them just a little better for their individual contributions to the golden age of traveling the vast oceans.
The historical accuracy and research is impeccable full of facts giving the audience little known details of how the first women infiltrated the once all-male crew and how they became not only important but essential to the running of these behemoths traversing the oceans.
Plus readers will meet and get to know the stewardess who survived the Titanic the Brittania and was on board the Olympic when it collided with a British Warship, Violet Jessop who is often called the Unsinkable Stewardess.
But it’s not only about the employees the book covers passengers from first class like Wallace Simpson and Josephine Baker to steerage and readers will get a birds-eye view of the opulence of first class and the cramped quarters of the lower-class cabins.
Fans of strong women of history, trans-Atlantic ocean liner travel and non-fiction history will really enjoy this.
The narration by Jilly Bond is clear and factual but because of the wordiness of the book it tends to be rather boring to listen to so for this instance and with no fault of the narrator reading it may be a better choice.

Interwoven with much historical context, Maiden Voyages delves deep into the lives of the women who worked on transatlantic ocean liners, while simultaneously exploring the constant developments to the ships. I appreciated how thorough the author was, explaining how these women's lives and employment evolved leading up to, during and following the World Wars. Overall, this was a very in depth and fascinating read that, while it sometimes got mired in the amount of detail that was covered, still kept me interested throughout.

Unfortunately, the audiobook narrator wasn't for me, and I likely would have benefited from reading this physically rather than listening to it. The narrator managed to make such interesting subject matter feel dry, and her attempts to provide different voices for the various people quoted in this non-fiction book (especially men) detracted from the narration rather than adding to it. Quite frankly, if I had checked this audiobook out from the library rather than receiving this as an ARC for review, I would have returned it 5 minutes in and tried the eBook at a later time.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The beginning of this, with the background of the ships and crews, almost made me stop the book. I am glad I pushed through, but be advised there is some background building the beginning. This was not a topic that I would have pursued had I not been given a chance to read/listen to this story, but I was very intrigued to learn about these women.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

I’ve been in a historical mood lately which helped me with this one. Additionally I like to hear about what women did in the past compared to now.

An engaging, fascinating, entertaining, and captivating book about transatlantic ship voyages and the women who worked aboard, or traveled between North America and Europe. A very good overview of the history of ship traveling, its economic impact and the role of women in the industry. I particularly enjoyed some of the unknown stories and facts about famous and not so famous people. The context of world history during the 2oth century was another interesting aspect of the book. Thank you Macmillan, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I must admit I did not finish this audio book. I’m sure it’s an interesting book but the audio book was tedious due to the narrator. I’ve been struggling not to fall asleep.

Maiden Voyages shares the evolution of ocean liner travel and how this fascinating boom of progress affected the lives of the women who worked in this up and coming industry. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my copy of this audiobook. I have to confess that while I found a lot of this information new and interesting, the story was hard to follow and wade through. For me, the pace of this book felt a bit slow and it didn’t feel like there was enough of an underlying theme or storyline to connect all the women’s individual stories together. It felt more stream of consciousness (with a lot of information) than developed nonfiction, so I struggled to track throughout the chapters. I struggled to get through this at times, it was interesting, but the execution could have been better.

Maiden Voyages is a really good accounting of how women contributed to ocean travel in the 19th century, the dangers inherent to their work, and the ways in which the work functioned as an opportunity to advance in class. Basically, women have been badasses since the beginning of time.

Jilly Bond was the narrator and she was great; I could listen to her speak all day.

I received a copy of this audiobook for free from NetGalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.

I think I disliked history more than any other subject in high school and this book made me wonder why history wasn't taught with books like this. Sian Evans made the history of cruise ships and how women came to work on them so very interesting. I enjoyed how lives of women were so radically changed when they chose to work on these ships. Impoverished women could map out new lives, be independent, travel, and they could even change their social classes. History of the English monarchy was even changed aboard a ship because that's what led to Wallis being introduced to the Prince of Wales. I also found it fascinating that a woman living in Scotland in abject poverty could leave that behind, take a job on a ship, meet and marry a man, and go on to birth a child who would become the president of the United States. https://wendyreadit.wordpress.com/2021/09/04/maiden-voyages-magnificent-ocean-liners-and-the-women-who-traveled-and-worked-aboard-them/

This is a great book to learn about the history of women working and traveling on ships. It's not something you think about that women weren't allowed to even ride on cruise ships let alone work. It talks about the stories of different women who worked multiple different types of jobs and even work during the war. I found it very interesting. The story flowed very well in the narration was really good.

A comprehensive history of women on the seas focusing mainly on the years between the two world wars. This is a very detailed accounting with many interesting historical personages mentioned. Definitely a niche book, though.

Basing this interesting story on diaries, letters and accounts published, not only is this a story of women who worked on ocean liners during their heyday, it is also the story of passengers like Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich. Yes, those tantalizing tidbits about famous passengers adds to the story but it is the single women and widows who chose the sea life as a career which guides the account. It’s the story of these women who served aboard hospital ships during WWI and then were relegated back to the former lowly women held before the world. If you enjoy women’s history or Eric Larson’s Dead Wake, you will appreciate this book.

This book started strong and seemed to peter out. Once the author mentioned she was a relative of a shipping executive and had access to those files, it seemed like that information was just being retold.