The Glass Ocean

Starred review from September 3, 2018
Williams, Willig, and White (The Forgotten Room) form a spectacularly winning team for this action- and romance-packed historical novel. The story is seamlessly narrated in alternating chapters by two American women aboard the British luxury liner Lusitania on its fateful final cruise in 1915 and by a 21st-century writer trying to unearth a family secret. “What a story they told,” writes struggling author Sarah, whose great-grandfather was a steward on the doomed passenger ship, while surveying the intriguing belongings returned after the ocean liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Convinced the items will lead to a bestseller, Sarah goes to London to enlist the help of John Lanford, the great-grandson of Lusitania survivor and spy novelist Robert, to reconstruct a murky conspiracy aboard the ship; they end up testing the boundaries of love and trust. The other richly drawn narrations are provided from aboard the Lusitania itself by Southern beauty Caroline, who is sailing with her secretive industrialist husband, Gilbert, and by steerage passenger Tess, pressed into a high-risk forgery by her con artist sister, Ginny. The story toggles effortlessly between timelines, building romance and intrigue to a hellish climax at the Lusitania’s sinking—and to the completion of a book Sarah never intended to write 100 years later. The result is an unputdownable thriller.

September 1, 2018

The authors behind The Forgotten Room (Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White) return with another multiperiod novel, focusing this time on the fateful voyage of the RMS Lusitania. Tensions are high in 1915 as the ship prepares to embark from New York to Liverpool, England, with Britain and Germany already at war. Caroline Hochstetter would rather stay home, but husband Gilbert, distracted with business, insists on the trip. Caroline is therefore delighted and conflicted to find her old friend Robert Langford among the passengers. Also on board are the Schaff sisters, a pair of grifters working on a big score that younger sibling Tess wants to make her last. Fast-forward to 2013, with American historian and writer Sarah Blake in England to discover the connection between Robert and her great-grandfather Patrick, a steward who died in the disaster. Her only hope is to enlist the aid of John Langford, a now disgraced MP. VERDICT Admired in historical and women's fiction circles, these best-selling authors create an absorbing tale interlaced with espionage, secrets, romance, and historic detail. Both witty and urbane despite the ultimate tragedy, this is a beautifully rendered retrospective. For all historical fiction devotees. [See Prepub Alert, 4/9/18.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2018
Williams, Willig, and White (The Forgotten Room, 2016) work together again to create a riveting historical mystery. This time they follow three women who are linked by the tragic sinking of the RMS Lusitania. In the present, Sarah is at her wit's end after squeezing every last penny from her successful first novel. Desperate for her next book idea, she uncovers a secret inside a family heirloom that leads her to the Lusitania and its doomed passengers. In 1915, readers follow Caroline, one of those very passengers, who hopes the transatlantic voyage will save her marriage. Sailing first class, she's surrounded by luxury but cannot find happiness, with her husband or with her lover. Suspicions steer Caroline to Tessa Fairweather, otherwise known as Tennessee Schaff. An expert at swindles and scams, Tessa travels in second class and plans to carry out a deceitful crime. Team W takes readers on a voyage, filled with twists and turns, in which secrets abound, no one can be trusted, and history isn't always what it seems.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)