This book held my attention simply because I needed to know who survived and who didn't as well as the back story of Grace Winter. The book is well written with believable characters and a growing sense of the horror of the situation on the lifeboat. Unfortunately many answers are simply missing and the reader is left with as many questions (if not more) at the end as when the book began. As a character study, it is excellent, as a mystery, there is a definite lack. A book group would find much to discuss as well as to complain about. If your group needs resolution - avoid this book. If your group thrives on speculation - this is the book for you. (This book was provided free by the publisher.)

The first book disliked by our entire club. Very disjointed and poor character descriptions. Just plain not worth reading!

This is an interesting story of what 40 people do to survive in a life boat after the sinking of their ship. It wasn't my favorite book ever, but it was definitely interesting.

It is hard not to put oneself in the lifeboat with the victims of the shipwreck The story brings up many questions about what one would do to survive and how it would affect the rest of your life. This is a quick read and leads itself wonderfully to a book club discussion.

A good read and good topics for discussion. One gets a strong feeling of what it would be like stuck in a life boat or other survivor situation. The time period is pre-WWI which makes the outcome a bit different today because we lack such high moral standard,

The Lifeboat was a dramatic story of a young new bride who escapes a sinking ship along with 39 other passengers. Their 21 day journey is filled with a gamut of emotion -- faith, abandonment, horror, despair and a bit of hope. A heart wrenching story, this tale gives rise to many moral and ethical issues that people must cross in the face of mortal peril. This was not a "feel-good" story, but is packed full of great discussion questions and the unpredictability of human nature. This was a quick read for me - only because I couldn't put it down.

When I heard about the story line, I thought this would be an intense book with interesting and developed characters and and strong story. Wrong. Writing style boring. Nothing is FULLY developed, the characters or story line. Too bad, I was looking forward to a good read.

A great book for discussion: is it men against the women? Who is really in charge? Is she a social climber?

I recommended this book to my book club, based upon the premise of the story. Clearly, this was a case of \"don\'t judge a book by it\'s cover.\" I thought the idea of the book, survivors in a lifeboat was intriguing and the first few chapters set up the premise very well and I was hooked. Then the rest of the book just fell flat. The main character was not fully formed and the supporting characters where less so. After a while, I started not to care what happened to them.

There were so many points in this book that were unclear. Many were confused about whether the cargo had any significance to the crash and escape. There were those of us that thought the main character killed her husband, while others thought the incident was just a delusion. The number of characters made it difficult to follow and difficult to discuss. The book, while short in length, just seemed to dredge on in the lifeboat. I am sure some of these aspects would be true to life, but the disturbing nature was not something that I would clutter other's minds with, so I do not recommend this book.

Not an enjoyable book.

A pretty good story for the author's first attempt. Written from the viewpoint of one of the Lifeboat's survivor, Grace Winter. If one put yourself in that Lifeboat you can well imagine all of the events and situations and clicks that form or occur. Mrs. Grant is seen as the humanitarian and Hardie the fiend, but in the end how is one different than the other? Grace is seen as indecisive and not taking sides, but when looking back one wonders on innocent she is in all of this and how conniving she is? We had a good discussion on the story.

This is a real page turner. It keeps you guessing right up to the end. It also explores philosophies on religion, God, meaning of life, survival, without being didactic. Some of the themes and mysteries touched upon could have been further developed and resolved. As it stands, one is left with a sense that the novel is not quite finished. However, it was a very exciting, sometimes somewhat grisly yarn.