More on the Unexplained: Why Claudia Gray Always Loved the Titanic
by Claudia Gray
I was a weird kid.
Not that I’m so much less weird now. But still. Weird kid.
And weird kids like to read about weird things. This is why weird kids often grow up to be the most interesting people. Certainly it’s also why I became fascinated by the Titanic many years ago, when I was a small child.
Now, why does the Titanic count as something peculiar? It’s a real event, which happened to real human beings … in other words, very unlike vampires, werewolves, and ghosts, which (I REALLY HOPE) are not real at all.
But that’s how the Titanic was often classified when I was growing up. When I was young, and cavemen walked the earth while pterodactyls soared through the skies, the wreckage of the Titanic had not yet been found. The sinking felt less like a historical fact and more like an unexplained mystery, one that we thought might never come to light. The Titanic was as much a ghost ship as the Marie Celeste.
(What was the Marie Celeste, you might be asking? Look that up sometime, when it’s broad daylight and you have friends around, and you don’t feel like you’d go to sleep early that night anyway.)
Before we’d seen the shipwreck on the ocean floor, a lot of facts about the sinking remained in dispute. I distinctly remember reading a book about it that showed sketches from one survivor, which portrayed the ship breaking in two just before it sank. And in that book, they talked about how this was TOTALLY CRAZY and NOBODY else out there that night saw it, and so this was probably him being hysterical, no more than that.
Of course, now we know that the Titanic snapped in two during her final minutes, because Bob Ballard found her in two segments on the ocean floor. And everybody acts like it’s totally obvious. It wasn’t obvious; that one survivor whose account everyone made fun of was in fact one of the only people that night who fully understood what he was seeing.
Other bits of trivia were even spookier. Did you know there were rumors of a cursed mummy in the hold of the ship? No, there wasn’t one – as much as it would have explained. But one passenger, earlier in the voyage, had told a ghost story about it to amuse and frighten his friends. Afterward, naturally, they wondered if he’d been telling the truth.
One far-out tale from the Titanic that is 100% true? A novelist, Morgan Robertson, wrote a book about a terrible disaster at sea. The world’s wealthiest people were all aboard, he wrote, on a cold April night when the captain failed to heed ice warnings. When the ship struck an iceberg, they realized there weren’t enough lifeboats for all the passengers. The ship’s name: Titan.
Maybe that sounds like he didn’t try very hard to disguise the fact that he was writing about the Titanic. The catch – Robertson wrote FUTILITY, OR THE WRECK OF THE TITAN in 1898, fourteen years before the disaster.
The next time anyone asks you if it’s possible to see the future – tell them about that one.
Of course, other people wrote stories about disasters on the North Atlantic before the wreck of the Titanic – one of whom was W.T. Stead. Some people afterward claimed he must have had precognitive ability to see it coming … but if he had, he wouldn’t have boarded the Titanic as a first class passenger and gone down with the ship.
Honestly, though, most of the reasons I was always interested in the Titanic are the same reasons most people are still interested today. The incredible irony of building a luxurious, “unsinkable” ship that never survives its maiden voyage – the frustration of knowing that they had room for enough lifeboats but failed to put them on board – the curiosity we feel about whether we’d make it to a lifeboat in time, if we’d been there – the glamour of the ship’s beauty – the death of a more optimistic, confident era: It’s all there.
Finding the shipwreck may have removed some of the mystery, but none of the fascination.
******************************
The Book Heist: Sinking Into Titanic Research
Hippies Beauty and Books Oh My: Tip of the Iceberg: Climax Themes and Challenges
Songs and Stories: Switching from Port to Starboard – From Vampires to Werewolves
Live to Read: On Board with Tess Davies
The Book Cellar: On Board with Alec Marlowe
Bellas Novella: On Board with Secondary Characters
Mundie Moms Book Reviews: More on the Unexplained: Why Claudia Gray Always Loved the Titanic
**************************************
Fateful
A novel by Claudia Gray
Eighteen-year-old maid Tess Davies is determined to escape the wealthy, troubled family she serves. It’s 1912, and Tess has been trapped in the employ of the Lisles for years, amid painful memories and twisted secrets. But now the Lisle family is headed to America, with Tess in tow. Once the ship they’re sailing on—the RMS Titanic—reaches its destination, Tess plans to strike out and create a new life for herself.
Her single-minded focus shatters when she meets Alec, a handsome first-class passenger who captivates her instantly. But Alec has secrets of his own. He’s in a hurry to leave Europe, and whispers aboard the ship say it’s because of the tragic end of his last affair with the French actress who died so gruesomely and so mysteriously. . . .
Soon Tess will learn just how dark Alec’s past truly is. The danger they face is no ordinary enemy: werewolves exist and are stalking him—and now her, too. Her growing love for Alec will put Tess in mortal peril, and fate will do the same before their journey on the Titanic is over.
In Fateful, New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray delivers paranormal adventure, dark suspense, and alluring romance set against the opulent backdrop of the Titanic’s first—and last—voyage.
by Claudia Gray
I was a weird kid.
Not that I’m so much less weird now. But still. Weird kid.
And weird kids like to read about weird things. This is why weird kids often grow up to be the most interesting people. Certainly it’s also why I became fascinated by the Titanic many years ago, when I was a small child.
Now, why does the Titanic count as something peculiar? It’s a real event, which happened to real human beings … in other words, very unlike vampires, werewolves, and ghosts, which (I REALLY HOPE) are not real at all.
But that’s how the Titanic was often classified when I was growing up. When I was young, and cavemen walked the earth while pterodactyls soared through the skies, the wreckage of the Titanic had not yet been found. The sinking felt less like a historical fact and more like an unexplained mystery, one that we thought might never come to light. The Titanic was as much a ghost ship as the Marie Celeste.
(What was the Marie Celeste, you might be asking? Look that up sometime, when it’s broad daylight and you have friends around, and you don’t feel like you’d go to sleep early that night anyway.)
Before we’d seen the shipwreck on the ocean floor, a lot of facts about the sinking remained in dispute. I distinctly remember reading a book about it that showed sketches from one survivor, which portrayed the ship breaking in two just before it sank. And in that book, they talked about how this was TOTALLY CRAZY and NOBODY else out there that night saw it, and so this was probably him being hysterical, no more than that.
Of course, now we know that the Titanic snapped in two during her final minutes, because Bob Ballard found her in two segments on the ocean floor. And everybody acts like it’s totally obvious. It wasn’t obvious; that one survivor whose account everyone made fun of was in fact one of the only people that night who fully understood what he was seeing.
Other bits of trivia were even spookier. Did you know there were rumors of a cursed mummy in the hold of the ship? No, there wasn’t one – as much as it would have explained. But one passenger, earlier in the voyage, had told a ghost story about it to amuse and frighten his friends. Afterward, naturally, they wondered if he’d been telling the truth.
One far-out tale from the Titanic that is 100% true? A novelist, Morgan Robertson, wrote a book about a terrible disaster at sea. The world’s wealthiest people were all aboard, he wrote, on a cold April night when the captain failed to heed ice warnings. When the ship struck an iceberg, they realized there weren’t enough lifeboats for all the passengers. The ship’s name: Titan.
Maybe that sounds like he didn’t try very hard to disguise the fact that he was writing about the Titanic. The catch – Robertson wrote FUTILITY, OR THE WRECK OF THE TITAN in 1898, fourteen years before the disaster.
The next time anyone asks you if it’s possible to see the future – tell them about that one.
Of course, other people wrote stories about disasters on the North Atlantic before the wreck of the Titanic – one of whom was W.T. Stead. Some people afterward claimed he must have had precognitive ability to see it coming … but if he had, he wouldn’t have boarded the Titanic as a first class passenger and gone down with the ship.
Honestly, though, most of the reasons I was always interested in the Titanic are the same reasons most people are still interested today. The incredible irony of building a luxurious, “unsinkable” ship that never survives its maiden voyage – the frustration of knowing that they had room for enough lifeboats but failed to put them on board – the curiosity we feel about whether we’d make it to a lifeboat in time, if we’d been there – the glamour of the ship’s beauty – the death of a more optimistic, confident era: It’s all there.
Finding the shipwreck may have removed some of the mystery, but none of the fascination.
******************************
Fateful Blog Hop Tour Guest Posts!
The Book Heist: Sinking Into Titanic Research
Hippies Beauty and Books Oh My: Tip of the Iceberg: Climax Themes and Challenges
Songs and Stories: Switching from Port to Starboard – From Vampires to Werewolves
Live to Read: On Board with Tess Davies
The Book Cellar: On Board with Alec Marlowe
Bellas Novella: On Board with Secondary Characters
Mundie Moms Book Reviews: More on the Unexplained: Why Claudia Gray Always Loved the Titanic
**************************************
Fateful
A novel by Claudia Gray
Eighteen-year-old maid Tess Davies is determined to escape the wealthy, troubled family she serves. It’s 1912, and Tess has been trapped in the employ of the Lisles for years, amid painful memories and twisted secrets. But now the Lisle family is headed to America, with Tess in tow. Once the ship they’re sailing on—the RMS Titanic—reaches its destination, Tess plans to strike out and create a new life for herself.
Her single-minded focus shatters when she meets Alec, a handsome first-class passenger who captivates her instantly. But Alec has secrets of his own. He’s in a hurry to leave Europe, and whispers aboard the ship say it’s because of the tragic end of his last affair with the French actress who died so gruesomely and so mysteriously. . . .
Soon Tess will learn just how dark Alec’s past truly is. The danger they face is no ordinary enemy: werewolves exist and are stalking him—and now her, too. Her growing love for Alec will put Tess in mortal peril, and fate will do the same before their journey on the Titanic is over.
In Fateful, New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray delivers paranormal adventure, dark suspense, and alluring romance set against the opulent backdrop of the Titanic’s first—and last—voyage.
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Have you heard about Titanic 2 yet? You can be setting sail on the Titanic in 2016.
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