
The Last Lifeboat
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Narrated by:
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Billie Fulford-Brown
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By:
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Hazel Gaynor
A Most Anticipated Book by Real Simple ∙ SheReads ∙ BookBub ∙ and more!
Inspired by a remarkable true story, a young teacher evacuates children to safety across perilous waters, in a moving and triumphant new novel from New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor.
1940, Kent: Alice King is not brave or daring—she’s happiest finding adventure through the safe pages of books. But times of war demand courage, and as the threat of German invasion looms, a plane crash near her home awakens a strength in Alice she’d long forgotten. Determined to do her part, she finds a role perfectly suited to her experience as a schoolteacher—to help evacuate Britain’s children overseas.
1940, London: Lily Nichols once dreamed of using her mathematical talents for more than tabulating the cost of groceries, but life, and love, charted her a different course. With two lively children and a loving husband, Lily’s humble home is her world, until war tears everything asunder. With her husband gone and bombs raining down, Lily is faced with an impossible choice: keep her son and daughter close, knowing she may not be able to protect them, or enroll them in a risky evacuation scheme, where safety awaits so very far away.
When a Nazi U-boat torpedoes the S. S. Carlisle carrying a ship of children to Canada, a single lifeboat is left adrift in the storm-tossed Atlantic. Alice and Lily, strangers to each other—one on land, the other at sea—will quickly become one another’s very best hope as their lives are fatefully entwined.
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Critic reviews
“Hazel Gaynor's novels have a way of gripping a reader's heartstrings, and her latest, The Last Lifeboat, is no exception. Inspired by the 1940 sinking of the SS City of Benares, The Last Lifeboat imagines what might have happened in a lifeboat lost at sea and the child evacuees onboard. Gaynor's latest is a glimpse into the anguish amid the families impacted by mass evacuations during WWII, but more than this, it is a story of bravery and surrendering to hope—especially for two women facing the most unimaginable of circumstances. A poignant, stirring tale. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time to come.” —Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary
“In The Last Lifeboat, beloved historical fiction author Hazel Gaynor illuminates a little known incident from the Second World War: the sinking by German U-boat of a ship carrying children who were being evacuated from Britain. The book tells the harrowing story from the alternating perspectives of Lily, a mother in England faced with the excruciating dilemma of whether to send her children away, and Alice, who escorts the evacuee children and finds herself charged with helping a small group of them survive in a lifeboat for eight days after the ship sinks. With her trademark combination of meticulous research and gifted storytelling, Gaynor weaves a tale that is captivating, heartbreaking and unforgettable. —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Sapphire
"A searing, emotional, based-on-a-true-story tale of impossible survival and incredible hope aboard a single lifeboat adrift in a greedy, perilous sea. … Gaynor’s story is powerful not just in its closely researched adherence to astonishing historical truth, but also in the way she so richly imagines the emotions of both those aboard the doomed ship and those on land who made the wrenching decision to part with their children. You’ll be on the edge of your seat as you root for a mother who’s lost nearly everything, a courageous children’s guardian finding her inner strength, and a ragtag group of survivors alone in the storm-tossed Atlantic.”
—Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names
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Powerful, Educational, and Evoking
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Realistic, sad, suspenseful
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There was a lot of sadness and despair in this story, but it is offset by an equal amount of hope and joy. The emotions of the mothers in this book are so deep…you can FEEL their profound sadness and their deep feelings of hope.
The perseverance and the will to live of the people in the lifeboat is astounding. How they endured, how they found moments of joy and hope, how they found moments of beauty in their surrounding and an ability to appreciate them in the midst of what they were enduring just astounds me.
There was not a moment in this book in which my attention strayed or in which I felt bored. I didn’t want this book to end. I know this book was JUST released, but I hope Ms. Gaynor is already hard at work on her next novel.
Don’t miss this book — it’s one of the best credits I’ve ever spent.
A WONDERFUL STORY OF PERSEVERANCE
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This is a very sad story that should never be forgotten. Not only for the lives lost but because of the disgraceful acts of violence done by mankind. That we have yet to learn not to repeat.
Tragic Fact told with Compassion
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Another main setting is within Great Britian itself. We learn what it was like in London during the blitzkrieg attacks. Experiences of the children's mothers, Aunts, and close family and friends.
--I had a hard time setting this book down...so if you read before bed, expect to stay up late. it's that good!
I have loved all the books by Hazel Gaynor that I have read.
Must Read!
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The bravery of these young people and the devastation to their parents
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Great read
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Great story
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Amazing True Story of Human Resiliency
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Highly recommend this book. No sex, no foul language that I recall, just a really good book that keeps you wanting to listen.
One of my biggest fears would be stranded at sea
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