Summer 1914. Europe is on the brink of war, but the future of the 22-year-old Grace Winter finally seems cloudless: on a comfortable liner, she and her newlywed husband return from London to New York, where Grace hopes to win over his mother. But in the middle of the Atlantic aboard the “Empress Alexandra,” a mysterious explosion occurs; the ship begins to sink, and the husband manages to place Grace into an overcrowded lifeboat. In the three weeks the lifeboat is tossed by the waves, Grace discovers abysses within herself she never knew existed. Not everyone will survive this ordeal, but upon their return to New York, Grace faces a test even harsher than the storm: a court trial.
What really happened in the lifeboat?
What secret did the “Empress Alexandra” keep?
What are you ready to do to survive?
The Lifeboat is the debut novel of 2012. The book instantly became a bestseller and received rapturous reviews from Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee and Booker laureate Hilary Mantel; the book is already being translated into 18 languages.