A review by leighannsherwin
Women & Children First by Gill Paul

4.0

After reading the author's non fiction book on honeymoon couples on the Titanic which was excellent I decided to try her fictional account of the ships doomed voyage. We follow several characters, Reg a steward in the first class dining room, Juliette a titled English girl who is unmarried and pregnant and who's mother is trying to find her a husband before her reputation is ruined. There are the Graylings, an older married couple who have a strained marriage since the death of their only child. Mr. Grayling has snuck his beautiful young mistress on board unknown to his wife and finally there's Annie a third class passengers who is travelling with her four children to meet her husband in New York. Part one and about half the book is about life on the ship. Reg spots Mr. Grayling and his mistress on deck one night and struggles with telling his wife, since she is a longtime favourite passenger of his. He also deals with a filtarious young woman who costs him half his wages. He also interacts with Annie finding two of her children running around the ship where they aren't supposed to be and waits on Juliette and her mother. I personally would've liked it a but better if the characters were a crew member and one from each class but that's a small issue. When the sinking occurs everything is thrown into turmoil. Mrs. Grayling is nowhere to be found and her stateroom is locked, but her husband and his mistress both board a lifeboat together. Annie struggles to find her way up to the boats and loses one of her children in the crowd, and Reg risks his life to try to save him. Only Juliette and her mother have a drama free escape. In the aftermath, Reg makes a choice that will haunt him and cause him as much trauma as the sinking itself, Mr. Grayling grapples with guilt and the scorn of others who wonder how he survived but his wife didn't, and there are rumours of foul play that the sinking didn't kill his wife. Juliette finds love, but it comes too late and she just hide her condition anyway, Annie suffers terribly with the loss but she makes connections with many other survivors and offers them comfort. We mostly follow Reg, and while his story was interesting, a few things were far fetched like a poor family coming to New York to track him down especially given that the family in question wasn't that closed to the man lost on the ship, and the whole car accident was a bit much. I hated Venetia with a passion and Mr. Grayling too until the final pages when the truth about that fateful night finally comes out. It was a good story, heartbreaking at times, but you did get to know and love or hate the characters to the point where I dreaded the night of the sinking because I knew not all of them would make it. It ends with a wrap up of what happened to the survivors, and a short summary of what really happened that night. A good fictional account of the sinking and the effect it had on those who survived it.