Sheltering Angel - (The Sheltering Angel) by Louella Bryant (Paperback)

About the Book

Based on a true story, Sheltering Angel follows Florence Cumings, an upper-class New Yorker, and her Titanic steward Andrew Cunningham who lead parallel lives until they work through terror and heartache to help each other survive.

Book Synopsis

"Sheltering Angel tells the true story of several lesser-known individuals whose lives were impacted by the Titanic disaster. The stories of Cumings, Cunningham, Siebert and the others are engrossing, and Bryant's passion for the source material shines through on every page." -Tad Fitch, author of Recreating Titanic & Her Sisters: A Visual History

He spent twenty years learning to be invisible. One night in April changed everything.

Andrew Cunningham is a Scottish ship's steward, a man of quiet intelligence and fierce pride who has spent two decades polishing silver for people who look cleanly through him. She is a sharp-witted New York socialite, a woman who has never once gone unnoticed. Two people from worlds a galaxy apart, with no reason to ever truly see each other.

But when fate lands them both aboard the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, the distance between first class and steerage begins to feel impossibly thin.

As the grandeur of the floating palace unfolds around them, something darker stirs beneath the surface. Coal fires smoldering in the hold. Ice warnings ignored. A red morning sky that no one wants to read.

What follows is not the Titanic story most people know. It is quieter than that, and far more devastating. A story told in borrowed wristwatches and closed piano lids, in promises made across a tilting deck and kept for twenty years after. Some nights leave a mark that no amount of living can erase. And some friendships are pressed together by history and simply refuse to come apart.

For readers who love historical fiction that finds its power in the human heart rather than the spectacle of tragedy, this is the story you have been waiting for.

Review Quotes

"I read this in one sitting. It was hard reading it because even though I knew what the outcome would be it still made me cry especially towards the end." -Lori Parrish, NetGalley Reviewer

"Bryant's passionate storytelling will captivate readers and bring a fresh perspective on a maritime tragedy that still reverberates in the twenty-first century." -Jacquelyn Lenox Tuxill, author of Whispers from the Valley of the Yak: A Memoir of Coming Full Circle

"Sheltering Angel tells the true story of several lesser-known individuals whose lives were impacted by the Titanic disaster. The stories of Cumings, Cunningham, Siebert and the others are engrossing, and Bryant's passion for the source material shines through on every page." -Tad Fitch, author of Recreating Titanic & Her Sisters: A Visual History

"It's a beautifully-told and poignant backstory to a piece of history we all know. Bryant is a master at finding such great true stories and bringing them to life." -Sylvester Monroe, co-author with Peter Goldman, of Brothers: Black and Poor-A True Story of Courage and Survival