The Deepest Waters by Dan Walsh wasn’t on my Spring Reading Thing list or even on my radar, but I saw it when looking for books for my mother-in-law for Mother’s Day, and I had enjoyed Dan’s two previous books, so I picked it up.
The book is inspired by a true story: though details of the characters are fictionalized, the main “bones” of the story are true.
John and Laura Foster are on their honeymoon on the steamship SS Vandervere in 1857, heading to New York in order for Laura to meet John’s family when the unthinkable happens: the ship is damaged in a hurricane and begins to sink. The women and children are rescued by another ship, but the falling darkness makes it too dangerous to go back to rescue the men. The captain and first mate decide the Vandervere could not have survived the night and the men are given up as lost. The rescue ship, the Cutlass, is not even equipped to handle the number of women and children on board: conditions are crowded and food is limited. Laura’s future is grim with no possessions but the clothes on her back and the pouch of gold John gave gave before they parted, all her wedding gifts sunk with the ship, heading to meet John’s family for the first time, uncertain of their reception — and that’s if the food holds out and they encounter no other storms or further setbacks.
It’s not much of a spoiler to tell you that John does survive, because that is revealed early on in Chapter Three, but he and several other men are hanging on to debris from the ship with no other ships in sight, wondering how long they can last without food or fresh water in the blistering sun by day and the cold water by night.
Interesting subplots involve a slave on the Cutlass, Micah, who helps the passengers as much as possible with an uncommonly cheerful spirit and John’s family, whom he had left not on the best of terms.
I have to admit the book started out a little slow for me. The first few chapters went back and forth between John and Laura, with some detail of their current situation provoking memories of their courtship, and, though interesting, it seemed a little formulaic and almost boring. But just about the time I was ready to pronounce deep disappointment in the book, new information and twists were brought in and the action picked up, and then I was caught up in the story and wanted to keep reading.
Some of the events that the reader might be most tempted to pass off as handy miraculous plot twists are in fact true!
I had said of one of Dan’s previous books that it would make a good Hallmark movie, and I think this one would as well.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
Stray Thoughts 
Sounds like a good summer read. I’ve never read anything by this author.
This does sound good, Barbara. I can put up with a little boredom if I know the story will pick up eventually!
Hope you’ll check out my review:
My Review of Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
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