Title: A Bride Across the Ocean

Author: Susan Meissner

Publisher: Berkley 2017

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 363

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Popsugar - Set in a Hotel; New to Me

February, 1946. World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Résistance spy.
 
Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom. When the voyage ends at New York Harbor, only one of them will disembark...
 
Present day. Facing a crossroads in her own life, Brette Caslake visits the famously haunted Queen Mary at the request of an old friend. What she finds will set her on a course to solve a seventy-year-old tragedy that will draw her into the heartaches and triumphs of the courageous war brides—and will ultimately lead her to reconsider what she has to sacrifice to achieve her own deepest longings. 

I randomly picked this up at the library after hearing about it on What Should I Read Next?, Anne Bogel's podcast. And I'm so glad I did. The premise sounded intriguing and it's a different kind of WW2 novel than I have read. I immediately fell in love with all of the historical character. Annaliese, Phoebe, and Simone were great. I loved learning more and more about their stories and speculating on where they ended up. I loved the mystery of "she" aboard the Queen Mary. The transitions between time periods and characters were well done. I never felt ripped out of the storylines. I ended up speeding through this one because it was so good. Definitely a fan. Must check out more of Meissner's works.

Next up on the TBR pile: