Sheltering Angel Outtake ~ Andrew in New York

  With no other opportunities, Andrew continued working aboard RMS Campania and mustered the good manners to be genial to his passengers. A steward was butler, dustman, and whipping boy, but he dared not let on he minded the duties—he needed the job. For him, the ship had become nothing more than the illusion of…

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Sheltering Angel Out-take ~ Andrew and the Northfleet

When I draft a book manuscript, inevitably I omit sections that don’t serve the plot. But I never completely delete them. Below is a short omitted section of Sheltering Angel that gives insight into Andrew Cunningham’s character.   Fog reminded me of rainy afternoons in Scotland when I was a lad. Da built a fire…

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Pierpont ~ 1907

If you’ve read my novel Sheltering Angel, you’ve met Andrew Cunningham, first-class steward aboard Titanic. Writing the novel, I cut sections to shorten the word count, because the scene didn’t support the plot of the story, and sometimes, as with the following outtake, because the episode is entirely made up. With historical fiction, imagination plays…

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Madeleine Astor ~ a tragedy within a tragedy

In my novel Sheltering Angel, based on a true story of the Titanic disaster, my characters Florence and Bradley Cumings spend time with John Jacob Astor and his young wife Madeleine. In many accounts of the maritime tragedy, Madeleine’s story ends in that spring of 1912—but her tale grows even more tragic as time passes.…

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Meet the most famous passenger aboard Titanic

Arguably the most esteemed passenger on the Titanic and one of the characters in my book Sheltering Angel: A Novel Based on a True Story of the Titanic was William Thomas Stead. According to the W.T. Stead website, he was “a newspaper revolutionary and one of the most controversial figures of his age.” Newsman, pacifist…

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Meet a fiery Titanic stewardess

In my novel Sheltering Angel, you’ll get to know Titanic second-class steward Violet Jessop. Here is a closer look at this sizzling beauty. During the Irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century, hordes of Irish left their country for Canada, the U.S., and especially Argentina where they hoped the pampas would provide more fertile land…

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The irony of one Titan and two Titanic passengers

Wendy Weil Rush, wife of late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush who perished in the recent implosion of the Titan submersible, has been noted for being the great-great-granddaughter of Titanic first-class passengers Isidor and Ida Straus. I can’t help but wonder at the irony of Rush’s fervor for taking people deep into the North Atlantic to see…

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At this writing, Titan submersible still not found

The horrific news about the missing submersible and its failed attempt to find the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic has hit me hard. For eight years I researched details about HMS Titanic, its concept, creation, crew, passengers, and ultimate demise and have recorded that research in my forthcoming novel SHELTERING ANGEL. I imagine the…

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Titanic third-class steward Charles Savage

In my novel Sheltering Angel, you’ll meet intriguing minor characters based on actual people aboard the Titanic. One of them is third-class steward Charlie Savage. Charles James Savage was born December 31, 1888, in Brightlingsea on England’s east coast. His father, a mariner, wasn’t around much, but Charlie had plenty of company with three older siblings.…

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Titanic Passenger Joseph Laroche

My novel Sheltering Angel, based on a true story of the Titanic, includes several actual passengers of the unlucky ship. Let me introduce you to Haitian engineer Joseph Philippe Laroche, the only black passenger aboard. Early Life Born in 1886, Laroche showed promise at a young age and at fifteen, his mother sent him to…

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