The Glass Ocean

A Novel

By: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White

Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson, Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Forgotten Room comes a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century—two deep in the past, one in the present—to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.

May 2013
Her finances are in dire straits and bestselling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history. Sarah embarks on an ambitious journey to England to enlist the help of John Langford, a recently disgraced Member of Parliament whose family archives might contain the only key to the long-ago catastrophe. . . .

April 1915
Southern belle Caroline Telfair Hochstetter’s marriage is in crisis. Her formerly attentive industrialist husband, Gilbert, has become remote, pre-occupied with business . . . and something else that she can’t quite put a finger on. She’s hoping a trip to London in Lusitania’s lavish first-class accommodations will help them reconnect—but she can’t ignore the spark she feels for her old friend, Robert Langford, who turns out to be on the same voyage. Feeling restless and longing for a different existence, Caroline is determined to stop being a bystander, and take charge of her own life. . . .

Tessa Fairweather is traveling second-class on the Lusitania, returning home to Devon. Or at least, that’s her story. Tessa has never left the United States and her English accent is a hasty fake. She’s really Tennessee Schaff, the daughter of a roving con man, and she can steal and forge just about anything. But she’s had enough. Her partner has promised that if they can pull off this one last heist aboard the Lusitania, they’ll finally leave the game behind. Tess desperately wants to believe that, but Tess has the uneasy feeling there’s something about this job that isn’t as it seems. . . .

As the Lusitania steams toward its fate, three women work against time to unravel a plot that will change the course of their own lives . . . and history itself.

a wonderful historical tale

one on the best collaborations done by these 3 women. A wonderfully told tale woven between history and the present.

Wished it had ended differently

The characters who ended up together didn't seem like they really belonged together. SPOILER. It's hard to believe that a man who has loved a woman passionately for 10 years would then just forget about her and propose to someone he hardly knew.

Love this book!

Now that I have finished, I want to start it again. I look forward to listening to Audibles recommendation next.

Great read!

I’m surprised at how mean and snobby some of these comments are! I’ve been reading Beatriz Williams for some time now and this is the first collaboration I’ve read. It did not disappoint. Is some of the story far fetched…sure. But it’s a historical fiction romance, it’s part of why we love them.
The narrators were amazing. They even sounded great at 1.2x speed. I don’t know why people were bashing them-so rude!

Enchanting

I couldn’t stop listening to this story! The characters and performance of them were enchanting the mystery the relationships. All inner twined around the real story of the ship Lusitania.