The Lost Sister

Very interesting story set in the present day and 1911, around the three sister ships of the Olympic, Titanic and Britannic. The main characters are also three sisters, Emma, Ruby and Lily, who live with their mother in Southampton. Emma is the oldest and most sensible, Ruby is the wild middle sister, and Lily the sickly younger sister. The current timeline is about Harriet, a grandmother, who whilst clearing out her attic with her daughter before she puts her house on the market to sell finds her late grandmother's travelling trunk in the attic which reveals a photo showing three sisters, whereas Harriet thought there were only ever two sister. We then flip back and forth between 1911 and Emma initially going to sea to New York on the Olympic as a stewardess, and the present day with Harriet and her family. Harriet's elder daughter Sally (a bit bossy) has a young son who is ill and undergoing medical treatment, and her younger wilder daughter Davina left home in her teens after an altercation and they rarely talk, much less see, each other, although that changes as the story progresses. A lot of the 1911 story is set from Emma's perspective, trying to keep everything together for her mother and sisters, and earn enough money to pay the bills, yet also have a bit of freedom herself. Ruby resents her restrictions and gets in with the wrong crowd. But both Ruby and Emma end up on one or other of the ships. There is quite a bit of mystery about which is the 'lost sister' of the title, and why they're lost, as it isn't clear until right near the end and a few things happened that I didn't expect. I felt the book was a lot about Emma in the past, and I would have liked to have read more details about the other two sisters, so it kind of left me with a few questions at the end of the book, but in the main I really enjoyed it.

THE LOST SISTER by Kathleen McGurl The Lost Sister has dual-time narration, between 1911 and 2019. In 1911, responsible sister Emma Higgins has left her employment at a local hotel, to take the chance of seeing the world as a stewardess on board the Olympic, a sea-going vessel. She hopes that her mother can keep their little family together, while she's gone for the three-week voyage. Ruby is the wild child sister, never satisfied with anything and always pushing the rules of home and society. Lily is the sickly sister, she has had a devastating case of TB as a youngster and seems to catch any little illness that comes along. Emma and Lily are close. Ruby and her mother are close. The Olympic is a sister ship to the Titanic, the Britannic is also a sister ship to the Titanic. At one point, all three sisters go to sea, Emma is the sister who goes on board each of the ships, with her two sisters. Each ship has its own adventure. In 2019, Harriet has recently lost her loving husband and has decided to consolidate her holdings and purchase a much smaller home. She finds a trunk in the attic that was her grandmother's and begins to go through all of the mementos enclosed in it. It was her grandmother's trunk that she used for her sea-going excursions. There are parallels in the dual timelines, of missing sisters who have taken a path away from their loving families. There are unexpected twists in the story that catches you off guard that make it a memorable and favorite book. It is an interesting take on the Titanic disaster of 1912. Highly recommend. Thanks a million to #netgalley for the complimentary copy of #thelostsister I was under no obligation to post a review.