by Hazel Gaynor
First published 2024
Alice King finds safety in books, not real adventures. But when a plane crashes near her Kent home in 1940, she discovers courage she never knew existed. German invasion threatens Britain, and Alice takes on evacuating children overseas. Meanwhile in London, Lily Nichols faces an agonizing decision. Her husband has left for war while bombs fall around their home. She must choose between keeping her two children close where danger lurks, or sending them away on a risky evacuation voyage to Canada. When a Nazi submarine attacks the S.S. Carlisle, children's lives hang in the balance. A single lifeboat drifts in Atlantic storms. Alice on land and Lily at sea become strangers linked by fate. Their lives intertwine as they fight to save the children caught between war's violence and the ocean's fury.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, world-war-ii
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, strangers-to-lovers
Setting: Kent, Britain, London, Canada, Atlantic Ocean
Period: 1940
Paperback · HarperCollins
Content warnings: war