Friday, November 11, 2011

No Moon by Irene Watts


No Moon

Irene N. Watts

When she was just five years old, Louisa Gardener and her sister Kathleen were told to watch over their baby brother while they were on a visit by the sea. But they were both little girls and they let him get out of their sight. His body was found later, drowned in the ocean. Louisa has been deathly afraid of the ocean ever since.

Now Louisa is a nursemaid for a wealthy London family. She loves her new job. It’s hard work and the Nanny Mackintosh is difficult to work for but she knows she is fortunate to have such a good position when she’s only fourteen. Now, because Nanny Mackintosh has broken her ankle and her wrist, Louisa has been told that she will be in charge of Lord and Lady Milton’s two daughters as they sail across the Atlantic on the Titanic. She doesn’t want to go but she doesn’t want to lose her job either so one fateful day she and the Milton family set sail on the most famous and tragic ship of all times.

I’m doing a series of booktalks on the Titanic on Monday, so my weekend will be spent read a number of books, both fiction and nonfiction, about the ship. I really enjoyed this one. Irene Watts must be a fan of Upstairs, Downstairs because she does an excellent job of portraying the lives of both the servants and those they serve and there were several parts of the novel that reminded me of that series.