"Ascendant novelist J.B. Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Patrick is older than J.B., formerly her professor, now a film director and cult figure. But now his success is starting to wane and J.B. is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. Her art has been forever overseen by him; now it may overshadow his. For days they sail in the sun, nothing but dark water all around them. Then a...

The 1950s vintage ocean liner Queen Isabella is making her final voyage before heading to the scrapyard. For the guests on board, among them Christine Thorne, a former journalist turned Maine farmer, it's a chance to experience the bygone mid-20th century era of decadent luxury cruising, complete with fine dining, classic highballs, string quartets, and sophisticated jazz. Smoking is allowed but not cell phones--or children, for that matter. The Isabella...

When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She's also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off...

"The art of the great Austian writer Stefan Zweig was a difficult balancing act. Zweig's major subject was human limitation, above all the ways in which the best of intentions can lead people into the murkiest of emotional and moral cul-de-sacs. And yet Zweig also hoped to illumine those dark places of the heart and mind, to show that it is not, finally, impossible to attain a true perspective on our limitations, even to care for each other. Zweig,...

"Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady's companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago. What she didn't expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous...

"Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends, or dating. But when she's shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it. The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they've never met in...

"A compelling, marvelous novel by the acclaimed author of Mink River Declan O Donnell has left Oregon aboard his boat, the Plover, to escape the life that's so troubled him on land. He sets course west into the Pacific in search of solitude. Instead, he finds a crew, each in search of something themselves, and what at first seems a lonely sea voyage becomes a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life's surprising paths, planned and unplanned"--

In 1932, the RMS Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refined, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt. Returning home on the luxury liner after months abroad, Rowland Sinclair and his companions dine with a suffragette, a Bishop and a retired World Prophet. The Church encounters less orthodox religion in the Aquitania's chandeliered ballroom, where men of God rub shoulders with mystics in dinner suits. The elegant atmosphere on board is charged...

"But even while trying to keep her niece away from the unsettlingly handsome actor, Marlene gets the feeling Carloalberto is in some kind of trouble-he is constantly on edge, and shady characters seem to find their way to him. When murder occurs aboard the North Star, Marlene will rely on instincts she hoped never to use again"--

"When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the "Become a Jetsetter" contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can't seem to find a bride; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday. Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young and she...