Description
Inspired by a remarkable true story, a young teacher evacuates children to safety across perilous waters in a moving and triumphant novel.
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 had 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 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 far away.
When a Nazi U-boat torpedoes the S.S. Carlisle, which is 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—quickly become one another’s best hope as their lives are fatefully entwined.
Endorsements
A Most Anticipated Book by Real Simple, SheReads, BookBub and more.
New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor.