A reimagining of the Titanic disaster set in the far future among the stars…
Laurel Wreath Award Finalist
Amazon Science Fiction Adventure Best Seller!
Dear Author Review:
Jayne at DA says, in part:
“…I was 4 chapters into this story when it dawned on me that I was lost in it and totally concentrating on this created world….The details of the doomed Titanic’s fate are cleverly re imagined in a space voyage…the tension builds, then recedes just a little, then increases, then is countered just a bit, then smacks the reader around some more before smacking the characters even worse. And then when I think this must be it, they’re safe, right? they aren’t. Safe that is….”
5 Star Review from Mark at The Masquerade Crew:
“What a rush!
After a little bit of set up, this story won’t let you go. It’s got action, adventure, and a dash of romance. It pays homage to it’s Titanic origins without being cheesy or overdone. The characters are not only believable but different from one another—like real people—which is sometimes hard to achieve. ”
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Audiobook, narrated by Actor Michael Riffle – Available Now at Amazon and iTunes
The Story
Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.
All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.
But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?
VS: I wrote two sequels to the novel, following what happened to various survivors after the wreck. I did a lot of research on survivors of the actual Titanic disaster and how their lives went on.
STAR SURVIVOR
The survivors of a terrible wreck meet again—but this time only one can survive.
The long-awaited sequel to The Wreck of the Nebula Dream…
They survived an iconic spaceship wreck together. She never expected to see him again … especially not armed to kill her.
Twilka Zabour is an interstellar celebrity. She built on her notoriety as a carefree Socialite who survived the terrible wreck of the Nebula Dream, and launched a successful design house. But now the man who gave meaning to her life, then left her, is back–this time for the worst of reasons. Will he kill her … or help her survive?
D’nvannae Brother Khevan survived the Nebula Dream in the company of a lovely, warm woman, only to be pulled away from her, back into his solitary life in the service of the Red Lady. Now Twilka’s within his reach again–for all the wrong reasons. Khevan will do everything within his power to discover why Twilka has been targeted for assassination, and to save her.
But Khevan is not Twilka’s only pursuer. Will allies Nick and Mara Jameson arrive in time to aid the couple, or will Khevan and Twilka’s ingenuity be all that stands between them and death?
This book is a re-release of STAR CRUISE RETURN VOYAGE, which was in the Pets in Space® 5 anthology. No new material has been added.
Gianna Nadenoft is a reclusive survivor of one of the worst interstellar cruise ship disasters in the history of the Sectors. Now a renowned artist, she hasn’t left her home planet in decades, not since returning there after the wreck as a traumatized three year old. With her service animal at her side, she’s going to make the effort to travel across the star systems to attend her brother’s wedding and reunite with her fellow survivors.
Trevor Hanson is a security officer aboard the cruise liner Nebula Zephyr with his own traumatic past as a former Special Forces soldier and prisoner of war. He’s assigned to provide personal protection to Gianna during her time aboard the ship but soon finds his interest turning from professional to romantic. The two share more in common than either of them realizes and their attraction grows as the voyage continues.
But powerful enemies including a conspiracy theory-obsessed fellow passenger and sinister individuals with hostile intentions are watching Gianna and making plans to seize this rare opportunity to gain access to her and the secrets they believe she’s still keeping about the wreck.
Can Trevor overcome his personal demons and rise to the occasion to save Gianna from the danger waiting on his ship? Or will she slip through his fingers and suffer a terrible fate deferred from the day her last voyage came to a disastrous end?
5 Star Review from Mark at The Masquerade Crew:
“What a rush!
After a little bit of set up, this story won’t let you go. It’s got action, adventure, and a dash of romance. It pays homage to it’s Titanic origins without being cheesy or overdone. The characters are not only believable but different from one another—like real people—which is sometimes hard to achieve. ”
*Early in the book, a character refuses to board the ship, citing a frightening dream she’d had. After the Titanic in 1912 there were many reports of people having had psychic foretelling of the disaster.
*The main character, Nick, tours the ship and is told there are notes being taken on things to be fixed or upgraded. On the Titanic, the meticulous shipbuilder Thomas Andrews was keeping just such a list.
*Nick reads the label on the lifeboat he’s loading, about how many people can safely board, then does calculations how many more he can really allow. On the Titanic many of the lifeboats were launched seriously underfilled. The manufacturer had tested the boats with 65 big, beefy men and hence many more women and children could have been safely loaded into the boats.
*For years my grandfather’s family has claimed a second class female passenger who survived as having been a distant relation. Now, in the age of internet searches, etc., I’m not so sure – she has the distinctive last name (by marriage it turns out) but the other facts don’t seem very conclusive to me…so I’m not going to claim her!
* A “character” in the book is named Huntington, after my youngest daughter’s cat
*In the 1958 movie A Night to Remember, the actor playing the Irish steerage passenger who sings is a dead ringer for my own Irish-descent father! (But isn’t LOL)
*Ok, more A Night to Remember trivia – Sean Connery had an uncredited bit part as a deckhand!
*Although this novel was quite a while ago, certain events I invented for my plot do bear an uncanny resemblance to aspects of the crash of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia. Can’t say more without revealing spoilers.
Research
Here are some of the many books and websites I’ve consulted over the years in my fascination with the sinking of the Titanic:
Walter Lord, A Night to Remember
Walter Lord, The Night Lives On: The Untold Stories and Secrets Behind the Sinking of the Unsinkable Ship – Titanic
Hugh Brewster, Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World
Rich Archbold, Last Dinner on the Titanic: Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner
Archibald Gracie, Titanic – A Survivor’s Story
Donald Hyslop, Alastair Forsyth, Memories from the Fateful Voyage
Lawrence Beesley, Loss of the S.S. Titanic – Its Stories and Lessons
Charles Lightoller, Titanic and Other Ships
Violet Jessup, Titanic Survivor
Robert D. Ballard and Michael S. Sweeney, Return to Titanic
Wyn Craig Wade, The Titanic, End of a Dream
United States Senate Committee on Commerce, The Titanic Disaster Hearings
Susan Wells, Forward by William F. Buckley, Titanic – Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner
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