"It was an okay read... one that lover's of all things 'Titanic' might enjoy." — Miss Remmers
Release Date: February 29th, 2012
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Challenges: NetGalley Challenge, eBook Challenge, 75+ Challenge
"On April 15, 1912, Lydia Beaumont is on her way to a new life with a boundless hope in love and faith. Her new friendship with Caroline Chadwick is bonded even more as they plan Lydia’s wedding on board the “grandest ship ever built.” Then both women suffer tragic losses when the “unsinkable” Titanic goes down. Can each survive the scars the disaster left on their lives?Decades later, Alan Morris feels like a failure until he discovers he is the descendant of an acclaimed, successful, heroic novelist who went down with the Titanic. Will he find his identity with the past, or will he listen to Joanna Bettencourt, Caroline’s granddaughter, who says inner peace and success come only with a personal relationship with the Lord?Will those who survived and their descendants be able to find a love more powerful than their pain?"I'll admit it, I'm a Titanic junkie. In 1997 I was 10 years old and I remember begging my dad to take me to the movie and (in retrospect I was probably a little bit too young) and I remember him saying: "You know how it ends! It sinks!" And, honest to God, I had no idea the Titanic sank or that it was a real ship! I cried and cried because he told me the ending; so, like any other Dad, he had nothing else to but to take me to the movie (again, talk about awkward). And thus started a Titanic obsession; from that moment on, like so many others, I read every book and saw every movie I could and that is why I requested "Hearts that Survive" from NetGalley.
Of all those books and movies, I will say that "Hearts that Survive" is definitely different. First of all, the Titanic sinks in the first 200 pages. The last 200 pages is on life AFTER the sinking (which I guess the title implies, but I didn't think that far ahead). For the most part, this book was okay. I did enjoy the characters and the plot was okay, but I did feel like the majority of this book fell victim (not to an iceberg) but to "show don't tell." I felt like this book was a big synopsis of a story of a different book. It was long (the galley was over 400 pages) and it encompassed over 50 years of multiple characters lives and as a result of ALL that material, there were many times that a lot of this story was told rather than shown.
I will say that the characters really kept me from starting a different galley. In the beginning, I was hoping Craven would be the underdog that would eventually get the girl. Unfortunately... well... yea. I don't want to say anything other than that "what wishful thinking... " I enjoyed Lydia's story and grew to like Caroline's (however, I ended up skimming over the beginning). The next generation's story (Lydia's son, etc) I didn't really care about due to much of their stories being skimmed over (not by me but by the author) in simplistic "telling" sentences.
Overall, it was an okay read. Not one I'll recommend to students because I don't think they'd stick with it, but one that lover's of all things "Titanic" might enjoy.
— Connect with the Author: Website | Goodreads
— BUY THE BOOK: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes and Noble
To the FTC, with love: Galley received from NetGalley