The opening chapter of my latest book, The House of Lost Whispers, is set aboard the RMS Titanic, and we all know how that monumental journey ended… or do we?
Poor thirteen-year-old Olivia Davenport is stuck at home with measles, when her parents perish aboard the ill-fated vessel. She’s sent to live with her guardian and we follow her story after this life-altering event. But the Titanic comes back to haunt her after the war, when she learns that an alternate reality exists where it didn’t sink.
Although only a small section of the book is set on the ship, I watched hours of documentaries, rewatched THE film, read several books on the subject, and visited the Titanic Museum in Belfast to ensure my research was accurate. The museum, in particular, was incredibly moving.
The tragedy is that this disaster was totally avoidable and, whilst I loved researching the opulence of the décor, the individuals aboard and the legacy of the sinking, what I really needed to work out was if the ship could have survived the collision. We know it was travelling too fast and the lookouts were late spotting the iceberg, causing it to scrape along the side of the vessel as the Titanic attempted to avoid a collision.
The “unsinkable” ship had sixteen watertight compartments, and if up to four were breached, she could remain afloat. However, in reality, six were damaged. But what if the ship had hit the iceberg head on? Many believe that, whilst there would still have been fatalities, mainly those in the crumpled bow, fewer watertight compartments would have been breached. The outcome could have been very different…
I do so hope you enjoy my tale of “what if?”, where a moment of hesitation on that April 1912 night opens up an alternate reality that changes Olivia’s life forever.
Jenni x