Dangerous Crossing

October 15, 2017
An Englishwoman running from her past finds herself out of her depth on a 1939 ocean voyage from England to Australia. The opening tableau of Rhys' novel flashes forward to its close: an elegant woman, handcuffed, clad in a green dress with matching hat and pumps and one of those fox stoles with a head, is escorted off a ship by police. Her identity and crime remain undisclosed until the end. Lily Shepherd, Rhys' protagonist and sole narrator, is a former housemaid whose affair with the master's son has driven her to enlist in a government program that recruits young women for domestic service in Australia. Upon embarking from Essex on the ocean liner Orontes, Lily is plunged into an ethnically and socially striated floating universe, competently evoked by Rhys. Sailing in tourist class, Lily has assigned dinner companions who include Edward Fletcher, newly recovered from tuberculosis, who is traveling to Australia for his heath, and his older sister, Helena. A less welcome fellow diner is George Price, a blustering bigot. Lily is immediately attracted to curly-haired, handsome Edward. She finds a confidante in Maria Katz, a Jewish woman who fled Nazi-annexed Austria and is anguished over the unknown fate of her parents, who stayed behind. First-class passengers Eliza and Max Campbell, charismatic aristocrats, often dragoon Lily and Edward into onboard and shoreside escapades involving copious alcohol consumption. But why are Eliza and Max slumming with the bourgeoisie in second class? On one such excursion, to the pyramids, Edward and Lily kiss, but for the ensuing weeks at sea he waxes alternately warm and distant. Lily is nonplussed, but her bafflement is required to guard the novel's main wellspring of suspense, which has little to do with the identities of the murderess or victim. The very naming of this issue would constitute a spoiler, which is a shame: dealing with it head-on would have made for a more complex and less coy narrative. The most compelling mystery here lurks between the lines.

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November 15, 2017

Join Lily Shepherd as she sets sail from England to Australia on the brink of World War II in 1939. Part of a program offering free passage for people who will be servants in the wealthy homes of Sydney, she is onboard swept up in the romantic atmosphere of the balls, dinners and cocktails with people she would never have met under normal circumstances. Lily is a close observer of the strong personalities of her fellow passengers, including fascist George, Jewish refugee Maria, the friendly but enigmatic Edward and Helena Fletcher, and the wealthy but troubled Max and Eliza Shepherd, who keep drifting down from first class. A mystery is set up in the first chapter as police lead a prisoner wearing a green suit and fox stole off the boat in Sydney. The next chapter sees Lily boarding the boat at the beginning of the journey. VERDICT Making her historical fiction debut, Rhys, who also writes psychological thrillers as Tammy Cohen, offers plenty of glamorous atmosphere, period detail, and engaging ports of call along the way to please both historical fiction readers and mystery lovers.--Cheryl Bryan, Orleans, MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2017
In the fall of 1939, Lily Shepard leaves her life's story behind. She steps onboard an ocean liner bound for Australia, saying goodbye to her family and an entire continent on the brink of war. Determined to reinvent herself, Lily is swept up into high society, a far cry from her former life in domestic service for a wealthy family. Meanwhile, she can't let go of her troubled pastnamely, a failed relationship and her best friend's scandalous deathand intriguing new acquaintances, with their own secrets, quickly find her onboard. Based upon the actual diaries of a young woman's assisted passage to Australia in 1938, this is a seductive historical-fiction novel that grabs readers' attention from the first page and doesn't let go. Rhys, the pseudonym for an author of successful psychological thrillers, beautifully captures each scene during Lily's five-week voyage. Different classes and cultures are suddenly thrown together, and lines are blurred, societal boundaries are crossed, and Lily is unsure of whom to trust. Rhys combines history, intrigue, scandal, and murder, and readers will love it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)