Historical
When the Lusitania sinks in 1915, Anita loses her infant son and husband to grief and war. Decades later a young man, Charles, is given a package containing mysterious items by his dying grandfather, which spark a search across time and continents, uncovering a buried family secret.
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A haunting tale of the ripples of war, the endurance of memory and the unbreakable threads of family.
1915. When the RMS Lusitania is torpedoed by a German U-boat off the Irish coast, young parents Anita and Elmore are torn from their happy lives. They survive, but amid the chaos their infant son, John, is lost. Grief drives Elmore to vengeance on the battlefields of France, where he is reported missing in action. Shattered and alone, Anita seeks solace across the Atlantic, carving out a fragile existence on her aunt’s Californian ranch and with the wealthy McKinneys in colonial Nassau, before finally settling in the shadows of New York’s skyline.
Scotland, 1960. Twenty-two-year-old Charles is summoned to his grandfather’s deathbed and handed a mysterious package containing a child’s jacket and a bracelet. As curiosity turns to obsession, Charles embarks on a journey that will span decades, unravel a half-century-old mystery and lead him to a woman whose story was almost lost to time.
Here's what readers have to say about this book....
World War I and the sinking of the Lusitania figure as pivotal events in Rebecca Pells’ absorbing fictional story, “Absent Lives,” which the reader learns in an afterword has its roots in actual people, notably her father’s uncle Elmore and his wife, Anita, and their son, John, all of whom were aboard the doomed vessel when it was torpedoed by the Germans. Indeed, it’s from the perspective of a fictionalized Anita that the reader gets the novel’s events as she recounts them to a writer looking to do a book about her life – a writer who has an underlying secret that’s not hard to guess for a perspicacious reader. Still, the story as the writer gets it from Anita is one of pluck and resourcefulness in which she and Elmore survive the sinking, albeit with great anguish, and then later, as the world continues its descent into collective madness, she is further traumatized by having to watch him go off to the trenches and, throughout it all, she displays considerable mettle by establishing herself as a teacher and nurse in England and continuing an endeavor she and Elmore launched in Canada and even logging time on a ranch in America.
Absent Lives is a deeply compelling story that had me hooked from the first page to the last in the book. An excellent debut novel penned by talented author, Rebecca Pells. This multi-layered story takes the reader on an emotional, heartfelt journey that not only spans decades, but continents as well. Told through the eyes of Anita Pells as she relays her life story to a young writer called Charles who comes to visit her in the care home. Charles hopes to turn her incredible story into a book one day. But this is not the whole truth, as he guards secrets of his own which could change both their lives. 1915: Europe is at war, and many families living abroad returned home to defend their country. The story focuses on the lives of a young woman named, Anita, her husband, Elmore and their infant son, John, who are aboard the passenger ship, RMS Lusitania, bound for England, when the ship is torpedoed by a German U-boat off the Irish coast. The traumatic depiction of events that follows expands on the lives of the fortunate few who had survived the tragedy. But what of those survivors - now racked with guilt and could barely think of anything else other than the ones who had died? A selfish act was committed, and one that would cast repercussions throughout Anita’s life, impacting on the life-choices she would make. The story is well-researched by the author, depicting events that took place during the Battle of the Bois du Butte, which was both emotional and intense to read. A gripping, beautifully described emotional drama about a young woman’s resilience and her enduring love for the people lost to her. Haunting in its content and superbly written throughout. Highly recommended. 5 Stars. ARC Review by Jane H. Wood.
