Blog Tour & Review: The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig & Karen White

 

Title: The Glass Ocean

Author: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, & Karen White

Published: September 2019, William Morrow Paperbacks (Reprint Edition)

Format: Paperback, 432 pages

Source: Publisher viaTLC Book Tours

Summary: 

The lives and
loves of three remarkable women—two in the past, one in the present—and
the tragic final voyage of the HMS Lusitania.

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Forgotten Room
comes a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that
links the lives of three women across a century—two deep in the past,
one in the present—to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.

May 2013…Her
finances are in dire straits and bestselling author Sarah Blake is
struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks
the one promise she made to her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and opens an
old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS
Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. What she
discovers there could change history. Sarah embarks on an ambitious
journey to England to enlist the help of John Langford, a recently
disgraced Member of Parliament whose family archives might contain the
only key to the long-ago catastrophe. . . .

April 1915…Southern
belle Caroline Telfair Hochstetter’s marriage is in crisis. Her
formerly attentive industrialist husband, Gilbert, has become remote,
pre-occupied with business . . . and something else that she can’t quite
put a finger on. She’s hoping a trip to London in Lusitania’s
lavish first-class accommodations will help them reconnect—but she can’t
ignore the spark she feels for her old friend, Robert Langford, who
turns out to be on the same voyage. Feeling restless and longing for a
different existence, Caroline is determined to stop being a bystander,
and take charge of her own life. . . .

Tessa Fairweather is traveling second-class on the Lusitania,
returning home to Devon. Or at least, that’s her story. Tessa has never
left the United States and her English accent is a hasty fake. She’s
really Tennessee Schaff, the daughter of a roving con man, and she can
steal and forge just about anything. But she’s had enough. Her partner
has promised that if they can pull off this one last heist aboard the Lusitania,
they’ll finally leave the game behind. Tess desperately wants to
believe that, but Tess has the uneasy feeling there’s something about
this job that isn’t as it seems. . . .

As the Lusitania
steams toward its fate, three women work against time to unravel a plot
that will change the course of their own lives . . . and history itself.

My thoughts: Is
there anything better than reading a book by three of your favorite
authors? I love that these three gals have written yet another stellar
book together…and one that is impossible to tell who wrote what part. I
adored their first adventure as a writing team – The Forgotten Room, so I couldn’t wait to see what came next…and I definitely was not disappointed. 

 This
book is such a beautifully written story about the fateful voyage of
the Lusitania – a voyage I am ashamed to admit I didn’t know much about.
I loved the way the story was told – this time with one of the
characters, Sarah, being in the present day (2013), and two of the
characters, Caroline and Tessa, being in the past (1915) in the same
time period. I haven’t seen that before and found it very interesting. 

All
three women are very strong, well-developed characters and I was
equally invested in all their story lines…each time the book would
switch to another section, I was disappointed to leave the one we were
just with, but looking forward to catching up with whoever we were now
joining up with, if that makes sense. The characters just beg you to
want to follow them and care about them.

The
mystery that is set up will keep you engaged and is quite intricate and
well thought out. It slowly unravels and there are some unexpected
little twists and turns to keep you on your toes. And of course, it
wouldn’t be a 3W book without some romance thrown in. There are love
triangles that will keep you guessing all the way through, and might not
go the way you expect!

I
loved this book – it has a little bit of everything and as much as I
devoured it, I had to pace myself so as to not read it too fast because I
didn’t want it to end too soon. I definitely recommend this book to
fans of historical fiction – you won’t be disappointed! 

***This review was originally posted on October 19, 2018 for the hardcover edition. I have reposted it here for the blog tour. The link to my original review can be found here.

About the authors:

About Beatriz Williams: A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA from Columbia, Beatriz
Williams spent several years in New York and London hiding her early
attempts at fiction, first on company laptops as a communications
strategy consultant, and then as an at-home producer of small persons,
before her career as a writer took off. She lives with her husband and
four children near the Connecticut shore.

Author links:  Website | Facebook  | Twitter  | Instagram

About Lauren Willig: Lauren Willig is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of several novels. She lives in New York City with her family.

Author links: Website  | Facebook  | Twitter  | Instagram

About Karen White: Karen White is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and currently writes Southern women’s fiction. She lives in Georgia with her husband and two Havanese dogs.

Author links: Website |  Facebook  | Twitter  | Instagram

Purchase Links:   HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Be sure to check out all the other stops on the blog tour and follow the tour on Twitter (hashtags:  #TLCBookTours & #theglassocean).